


The Taming of the Dudes

by Englandwouldfall



Series: As you like it [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: And nine to fives, Another sequel, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Grief, M/M, Relationship Development, Romance, mortgages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 12:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9726872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englandwouldfall/pseuds/Englandwouldfall
Summary: They've been doing this long enough and successfully enough that Dean kind of feels they shouldn't be arguing over something as serious asthe mortgage.





	1. Chapter 1

_January, 2014_

There are downsides to being in a relationship with Cas after what feels like three and a half years of pining (even though that’s not exactly accurate; a lot of the time he had no idea about how frigging gone he was on his roommate, it’s just on the other side it feels really obvious). Most of those downsides aren’t anything to do with Cas, really, it’s just other people butting in and wanting to know about it. It’s Sam calling him twice a week and asking about how his _boyfriend_ is with an audible shit-eating-grin and Garth beaming at them every time he sees them together. Benny openly mocking him all the damn time. Jo sending messages about how freaking cute they are like she knows anything about it. Obviously, it’s worth it, but he sure as hell wouldn’t be being grilled about his three month anniversary by Charlie over frigging coffee if none of the rest of it had happened.

“So,” Charlie prompts, waggling her eyebrows at him, “Tell me everything.”

“What everything?”

“You and Cas _everything_ ,” Charlie says, “You know, about the eye-arguments and the clothes swapping and your domestic bliss.”

“Well, our _bliss_ is blissful,” Dean throws back, “Got no idea what you want from, here. It’s like before, except we screw all the time and we say sappy things at bedtime. It’s good.”

“You’re underplaying it,”

“It’s new. I don’t know how to play it. It’s not like I’ve done this before, Charlie,”

“But it’s going well,”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “Pretty sure.”

It feels like it’s going good. It feels like he’s got this well of warmth bubbling up under his ribs every time he thinks about it. It feels like it’s the best damn thing that’s ever happened to him, but he can’t tell Charlie that over coffee in between two of his frigging classes. He doesn’t do that kind of thing.

“What are you doing next year?”

“Hmm?”

“You and Cas,” Charlie prompts, “Next year. After graduation.”

“Uh,” Dean says, “We haven’t talked about it, Yet. On the agenda,”

“It’s kinda application time,” Charlie says, “If you’re gonna do more school. Grad schemes. Jobs. Working out whether you’re moving to California,” 

“Charlie,”

“You gonna stay living together?”

“We’ve lived together for nearly four years,” Dean says, “This point, not living together would be kind of weird,” He’s shifting on his seat now, peeling the cardboard cover off his coffee cup. Honestly, he hadn’t really been thinking about it. He’s been too caught up on the fact that they’re _dating_ now. They go on dates. They go out for food and make moon eyes at each other and then they go back to their flat and throw suggestive comments at each other until one of them snaps and they wind up making out in the kitchen. It’s _awesome_ , but he hasn’t exactly been thinking about the future. It just… hasn’t come up. Now is too good to stuff the future in, too.

“I guess,” Charlie says, but he’s not sure she’s convinced, “So you gonna move into a one bed place?”

Right now, they don’t even share a bed every night. _One_ bedroom sounds terrifying. One bedroom sounds way too soon. _One_ bedroom pushes him back into a headspace that he doesn’t not want to inhabit where he’s not absolutely convinced that everything’s going to be okay.

“Charlie, my family have known about this thing for two months, okay. I’m not all that sure that Cas has updated his yet. We are _early days_ , here,”

“I get that,” Charlie says, “But you’re kinda running on a deadline here.”

“Only deadline I wanna think about now is my essay deadline,” Dean says, “And Cas is knee deep in work, so,”

“So,”

“So, it’s benched, Charlie,” Dean says, “We’re not even _facebook official_.”

“Huh,” Charlie says, “Really?”

“Shut up,” Dean says, crushing his coffee cup and standing up, “Good talk, Charlie. Let’s rearrange for the fifth of never.”

“You LARPing this weekend?”

“Nope,” Dean says, “Getting laid.”

“Just cause you never managed both,” Charlie calls after him, “Let me know about Friday.”

Dean offers her a salute before lugging his bag of books towards his next class feeling a little insecure for the first time since they exchanged accidental love declarations at one of Charlie’s dumb parties. Not the crappy insecurity of being half convinced that this thing was unrequited and half convinced Dean was just too screwed up to make it work, but a sudden jolt of realising that this whole thing isn’t completely worked out yet.

He _knows_ that he's almost certain he wants to be with Cas for as long as he can feasibly imagine. He’s pretty damn sure that Cas wants that to. He’s just not sure how exactly that pans out in the real world.

When he gets to class, he pulls out his cell phone to find three different snapchats from his _boyfriend_ about the current state of their appartment. He can’t say he was paying a whole lot of attention about it when Cas goaded him into staying an extra half an hour in bed before class but, yeah, they need to tidy up and wash up and do some laundry. It’s just there’s so many _better_ things to do with their time.

_Make the bed & screw the rest_ Dean texts him, pulling out his notepad and a pen so he can at least try and convince himself that he’s gonna listen. He should. He really should pay attention to class. He’s close enough to the end of this degree that he really, really should pay attention in class.

_Done. I’ve made pizza. Get beer on your way home_. 

He sends Cas a smiley face and decides that, however it’s gonna pan out, he’s pretty sure they’re going to nail it.

*

Cas wearing his clothes around the apartment like he’s entitled is new and it _does_ things to him that he can’t even express in words. Dean’s jeans fit on Castiel’s hips all wrong in the best way and it brings up a surge of affection so damn strong that it scares him a little. He’s really not used to acknowledging this. Allowing himself to lean on the edge of the table and watch Cas rummage through their bottom draw for who the hell knows what because there’s not a damn thing he’d rather be doing with his time. He doesn’t… he doesn’t usually get things he wants this badly. He’s still working out a way to make himself believe this is happening, but it’s getting there. Coming home to Cas every day is becoming just a little more normal.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, without looking up or turning around. Dean continues to level his gaze at his ass because he’s allowed to do that. 

“Hey,” Dean says, “We hanging out this evening?”

“Unless you’ve had a better offer,”

“Not today,” Dean says, “You wearing my boxers, as well as my jeans?”

“You’d like that,” Cas says, sitting on the floor to turn and face him, obscuring the excellent view Dean had of his ass. They’re still learning these things about each other and it’s wonderful and impossible and addictive. He didn’t know they could have so much goddamn _fun_ screwing around and actually screwing and just, all of it.

“Just saying, man, I look good on you.”

“I look good in you,” Cas counters, still sat on the frigging floor, but it’s still cute. “Did you buy beer?”

“Yep,” Dean says, as Cas stands up - ungracefully, actually - and settles in front of him by the table. Dean hooks his thumbs in Cas’ belt hooks (well, his, really) and pulls him in a little closer. “Hey, so, uh. Did you tell your family we’re doing this?”

“This?”

“Relationshipping,” Dean says, “You know, promise rings and happy endings. The whole disney shebang.”

“It hadn’t come up,” Dean’s about to make an innuendo about _that_ when Cas cuts him off. “Do you want me to?”

“That’s a strong way of putting it,” Dean hedges, “But we’re… serious, right. I mean _this_ is serious.” 

“I am very serious about this, Dean.”

“Good,” Dean says, mouth slightly dry, “So they’re gonna find out at some point. I get that your Mom probably isn’t gonna be throwing a party, but…”

“Did Charlie corner you today?”

“Call your Mom, jackass,” Dean says, but he’s smiling as Cas reaches forward and kisses him against the kitchen they’ve shared for two and a half years, now. They are domestic as fuck, actually, and Charlie has a point about all of this. Bliss isn’t all that far off how he’s feeling.

Cas hesitates before he hits dial. 

“She might want to meet you,”

“We’ve met,”

“Dean,” 

“That’s cool,” Dean says, “You did the Christmas with my family shtick, so I can… I can re-meet your Mom.”

“You are serious,”

“As genital herpes,”

“Whilst I very much do not want to contract genital herpes -” 

“ - well you’re not gonna, cause you’re stuck with me for life, Sweetheart -”

“ - there are certainly _more_ serious ailments,”

“Hey, you want me to dig out those pictures we showed those high schools kids of flare ups? Come back to me then and tell me how I feel,”

“That was an error of judgement,” Cas concedes. 

“Who knew a couple of dudes with so many notches on their belt there’s nothing to keep their pants up could successfully convert a whole class of kids to abstinence?” Dean asks, chasing down Cas lips for another moment. “I’ll find something we can marathon watch tonight.”

“You have an assignment,”

“And you sound like Sam,” Dean calls after him, as Cas disappears into his bedroom to call his mother.

It doesn’t go particularly well, but Cas gets a call from Gabriel thirty minutes later, who apparently heard from Anna, and he seems pleased enough if how irritating Castiel finds the phone call is anything to go by.

*

_February, 2014_

“You’re awake,” Cas squints at him, rolling over onto his side of the bed and finding himself a spot on Dean’s chest to rest his head. Dean throws his spare arm around Cas’ shoulders and shifts a little till he’s comfortable. 

“What time’s your study thing?”

“Two pm,” 

“Let’s stay in bed till then,” Dean says, settling with his fingers running through the hair on the nape of Cas’ neck, shutting his eyes again. Cas’ hair is so frigging soft there and he’s warm and sleepy and stupidly content and is probably never going to move again.

“That’s five hours away,”

“Problem?”

“Despite your impressive poweress, I think _five hours_ -” 

“ - shutup,” Dean mutters, pulling him in for a kiss and pausing there. “You haven’t shaved.”

“Problem?” Cas echos back.

“Opposite of a problem,” Dean says, and he wants to run a thumb over the roughness of Cas’ cheek, but that would involve moving and he’s way too comfortable for that. “Like it.”

“I’m going to brush my teeth,”

“What?”

“Dean, if we’re going to spend the next _five hours_ making out, I’d rather -”

“ - but you’re warm, dude.”

“You’re brushing your teeth too,”

“Come on,” Dean complains, peeling his eyes open.

“You’re not going to persuade me otherwise. Three minutes, Dean, then we can get back in bed.”

“Two,” Dean counters, as Cas detangles himself and sits up, taking his warmth and Dean’s contentedness with him. Damnit.

“Dean, dental hygiene states that - ”

Dean throws a pillow at him. 

He does get up a minute later, though, because there’s no point if Cas isn’t there. If he’s getting to spend the majority of his Saturday doing nothing, he’s sure as hell gonna do it with as much Cas time as he physically fit into the day. 

“So,” Dean says in the doorway of the bathroom, watching Cas brush his teeth, “Spit or swallow?”

“No one swallows tooth paste,”

“Buzzkill,” Dean says, making a point to nudge him at the sink before taking up his own toothbrush to make sure Cas knows he’s kidding. Cas pretty much _is_ his buzz right now, so there’s that. Cas is also probably right. Dean’s a little gross from his midnight essay hand in (online, thankfully, but he still wound up finishing it at the library up to the wire) and Cas has been hitting the books pretty hard, too. They cleared the schedule to allow this morning so they probably should brush their teeth for it, as he’s pretty sure they’re not gonna get dressed. “You get much done last night?”

There's something to be said for sharing the morning routine a little, anyway.

“It’s fascinating to me that I can understand you through your toothbrush,” Cas says, reaching for his razor, pausing when Dean stops him with a hand to the arm. Cas raises an eyebrow in a question but Dean’s a little too committed to his teeth-brushing to be able to offer up an actual answer. He makes a wait eyebrow gesture before turning to the sink and spitting out his mouthful of toothpaste.

“Humour me,” 

“You really don’t want me to shave,” Cas says, tilting his head at him, curious. It only hits him then, toothbrush back in his mouth, that he’s not all that sure whether he has a right to ask for crap like that. Certainly, if anyone _else_ would have suggested that kind of thing to Castiel, he’d have thrown them out the door. It’s kind of a big deal. It’s pretty entitled to assume that he gets a say on Cas’ grooming decisions. 

Dean accidentally swallows his toothpaste. 

Cas smirks at him as he chokes on the stuff. 

“Given the practice you’ve had, I’d have assumed that would be more graceful,” 

“S’good job you’re hot, asshole,”

“Hotter with stubble?” Cas questions, still assessing him. He’s still _considering_ and Dean doesn’t really know what the hell to do with that. He didn’t mean it to be a thing. It just came out his mouth. He hasn’t had any coffee and he’s set himself up for spending a lazy day in bed and it just… fell out.

“I just,” Dean begins, but he’s half committed to it now, and it’s not like he can _un_ say it. “Like it when you kiss me. You’re plenty hot whatever you do.” 

“Okay,” Cas says, shutting the bathroom cabinet with a decisive click.

“Really?”

“I thought you were desperate to get back to bed,” Cas comments, dropping a kiss on his cheek before turning for the door, “I’ll be waiting.”

Damnit.

He catches up to him pretty quick, though, depositing himself on what’s become _his_ side of the bed gracelessly enough that Cas sends him a look. Dean just grins at him and pulls him in by the collar of his t-shirt (one that actually belongs to Castiel) and Cas only pretends to be mildly irritated at him for a few minutes before he’s shucking up Dean’s t-shirt.

“Why are we wearing clothes, anyway?” Dean mutters, pulling away in order to allow Cas to rid him of his shirt,

“We went to bed separately because you were at the library,” Cas says, smiling a little as Dean takes his opportunity to run a thumb over Cas’ jawline. “You’re going to get stubble burn,”

“Think I want it all over me,”

“Dean,” Cas says, smile widening.

“I fucking love Saturdays after hand ins,” Dean says, stretching out and pulling Cas in. It’s the best damn thing to just _kiss_ and touch with no direction and no purpose and no pressing time limit. He’s never done anything like this before. He didn’t really know that anyone did anything like this, but now it feels imperative that this is going to be a permanent fixture of their lives.

“Dean,” Cas says, as Dean drags the covers over them, “In early conceptions of this plan, you expressed certain intentions.”

“Forget that,” Dean says, “One of us would have to get up again. Shower, probably. Way too much prep work.”

“Good,” Cas agrees, framing Dean’s face with his hands and kissing him again.

*

Eventually, Cas gets up to get them coffee. Dean’s pretty sure that he could deal without given how great today is, but Cas actually has to go study at some point, so coffee probably isn’t the worst idea. It’s served as an unnecessary interruption to his cocoon of bliss, but he’s dealing.

“Here,” Cas says, pressing a coffee into his hands before crawling back under the covers. “Are you messaging Sam?” He asks, nodding at Dean’s phone.

“You remember that journalism student who interviewed Charlie about LARP?”

“Cassie,” Cas prompts.

“Right,” Dean says, “She’s back in town and wants to know if I want to ‘hang out’ later.”

“She has your number?”

“Facebook,” Dean says, dropping his phone onto the pillow next to him to take another sip of coffee.

“I’m at least keeping you until two,” Cas says, stretching his arms behind his back, “But I’m sure you could fit in some ‘hanging out’.” 

“Like I’d throw you over for anything,” Dean shoots back, “Maybe we should, uh, update that. Facebook.” Cas levels a blue gaze at him, curious, for the second time this morning. “You had that Hannah woman asking if you were free for coffee last week. That freaking booty call from Balthazar. I’m just sayin’, maybe we could save ourselves some time.”

“Hannah wasn’t trying to proposition me,”

“You sure?” Dean asks, “Because I’m pretty sure coffee is a euphemism ninety percent of the time. For Sex. ” 

“If you want to be ‘facebook official’, Dean, you can just ask.”

“If you use air quotes one more time, I’m gonna throw you overboard,” Dean says, setting his coffee down and rolling over onto his side to look at him. “So, you wanna?”

“I don’t know, Dean,” Cas says, mouth a straight line, “Perhaps I need to think about it. This is clearly a decision that needs a great deal of thought.”

“Blow me, Cas,”

“Again?” Cas says, smile spilling onto his face, then he’s leaning forward to kiss him, “Of course, Dean.”

“Awesome,” Dean says, digging his phone out from under the pillow and frowning at it, “I got no idea how this even works. Do I, like, relationship request you? Do you get a frigging notification?” 

“I can show you,”

“Just do it,” Dean says, passing it over, “Not intending to change it again for the rest of my life, so whatever.” 

Cas’ answering smile is warm enough that he must have caught his half throw away comment for what it was. 

As it turns out, the photo the internet algorithm selects for their ‘relationship’ post is a picture Charlie took decades ago of Dean laughing at one of Cas’ smart-ass comments. Cas is looking at him like Dean’s some precious object and Dean has a hand clutched on his shoulder and it’s the most coupley not-couple picture Dean’s ever seen in his life. He must have blocked it out at the time.

Charlie is the first one to comment on the fact that the damn picture was taken _two_ years ago and about time, already. Sam butts into the conversation next. Benny. Garth. Jo. By the time Bobby chimes in, Dean’s turned off his phone and is trying to talk Cas into delaying his study session until three. 

*

_May, 2014_

“I think we should move in together,” Dean says, when he’s about as done as it’s possible to be with a freaking assignment, and college, and job applications and every other bullshit thing that’s been going on in the past couple of weeks. They’ve been arguing and he’s been stressed and broke and kind of down and he is _just_ starting to feel better. Or, he would be, if he didn’t have to do this stupid assignment.

Cas sets down his fountain pen and leans forward to press a hand against his forehead.

“You don’t have a temperature,” 

“Cas, I’m serious,”

“You are aware that we do, in fact, already live together,” Cas says, the corners of his lips quivering slightly. “If you’re confused, I can show you the tenancy agreement.” 

“Shut up,” Dean says, flushing, “I mean it. We should move all my crap into your room. Make it _our_ room and the spare room.” 

“Your stuff won’t fit in my room,”

“We’ll amala-what’s it,” Dean gestures wildly, “Dude, just cause we happened to already live together doesn’t mean we should miss out on the step of moving in together.” 

“But we did,”

“It’s relationship progress, Cas!” 

“But we _did_ miss it,” Cas says, “We do already live together,”

“Cas,” Dean exhales, “It’s a thing.”

“It’s not,”

“Work with me here, man,” Dean says, “Do you wanna move in with me?”

“Dean, I _already live with you_.”

“But if you didn’t,”

“But I do,” Cas says, forehead creasing, “There’s not enough space in my wardrobe for your things,”

“But if there was,”

“This is ridiculous,”

“Castiel, do you object to the _concept_ of us cohabitating in the same bedroom.”

“No, Dean, it sounds very much how I intend to live the rest of my existence.”

“Okay then,” Dean says, flipping his book shut, “Then we’re moving in together.” 

“Dean,” Cas calls to his retreating back, “We already live together.”

Dean flips him off over his shoulder.

*

In the end, he doesn’t have a chance to move any of his crap till the weekend, by which point Cas has apparently forgotten the whole thing judging by the expression of blank confusion Dean gets when he lugs his bedside table through Cas’ bedroom door just after ten AM on Saturday morning.

“What?”

“We’re moving in together, Cas,” Dean says, just as his top drawer slides open and hits him the face. His lube falls out which isn’t exactly ideal, but it could’ve been worse.

Cas squints at him from his bed.

“When did you get up?” Cas asks, voice sleep rough as he sits up, “You were here.”

“Half an hour ago, sweetheart, we had a whole conversation,” Dean says, bending to put the bedside table on the floor and quirk an eyebrow up at the guy. He’s ridiculously adorable when he’s just woke up and, the crappiness that is the looming end of college aside, he has this frigging wonderful, perfect relationship that he never even hypothesised about because it was too damn good. 

“You’re moving furniture,”

“Cas, we talked about this.”

“You’re moving furniture into my room.”

“ _Our_ room,” Dean corrects, attempting to kick the bedside table in the right direction then regretting it because, obviously, it doesn’t move an inch. 

“Okay, Dean,” Cas says, then pulls the covers over his head.

*

Cas is actually conscious by the time Dean’s finished rearranging the furniture. The landlord’s probably gonna make them change the whole thing back when they move out, but he’s pretty sure that’s not gonna be for a while. Cas has accepted a job here after graduation. Dean’s currently unemployed with no freaking idea what he’s gonna do with his life or how he’s gonna pay rent, given he had to give up his job to fit in all his college work, but that’s not important right now. What’s _important_ , right now, that Dean just moved in with his serious boyfriend. Sort of.

“Have you told your brother the good news?” Cas asks, taking a seat at the kitchen table as Dean heads for coffee. 

“Huh?”

“That we’ve moved in together,” Cas says, smirking just a little, “As this is such a milestone in our relationship, it’s important to me that you share it with your closest family members.”

Oh, it’s on.

“Fine,” Dean says, pulling out his phone and hitting dial. Sam answers on the second ring because it’s a Saturday and his little brother apparently has no frigging life (he’s a hair breadth away from finishing high school and disappearing to California, so he’s probably studying too). “Me and Cas have moved in together,” Dean says, as Cas vibrates with amusement next to him.

“What?”

“We’ve moved in together.” 

“Is this one of your bits?”

“Nope,” Dean says. He was trying to make a point to Cas, but Sam doesn’t get it, and it is a little ridiculous, and he’s crossed over to finding the whole thing hilarious too. “We moved in together.”

Sam is silent for long enough on the other end of the phone that Cas totally fucking loses it, dragging Dean into his laughter until Dean’s got no idea why he was vaguely irritated that Cas wasn’t taking the whole thing seriously in the first place. It’s _hilarious_ and good and so damn funny.

“Sam,” Cas says, taking the phone and putting the call on speaker, “I think we need to go out to celebrate.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sam bitchfaces, “Dean.”

“You heard the man,” Dean says, beaming at the kitchen, “We’re gonna go celebrate.”

“What are you…? You know what, forget it. Congratulations, I guess.”

“Means a lot, Sammy,” Dean grins, “You let Bobby know for me?”

“Dean, I don’t even know what I’d be letting him know,”

And that’s enough to have both of them laughing again until Sam hangs up on them.

*

“I am pleased about our amalgamation,” Cas says, half way through their celebratory lunch-date, looking up him through those freaking eyelashes, fixing him with the kind of stare that makes Dean feel invincible. “Despite by mockery,”

“It’s a thing,”

“It is a thing,” Cas agrees, leaning across the table to touch his hand. “I’m glad we did it,”

“You’re just saying that cause you slept through all the furniture rearranging,” 

“That did help my gladness,” Cas smiles, “Dean, we live together.”

“Damn right we do,” Dean says, a smile creeping up on him again.

“We have a spare room,” 

“You bet it, sunshine,”

“I think we might be adults,” 

“Hey now, let’s not go getting ahead of ourselves,” Dean says, leaning further across the table, He kind of wish they’d gotten a booth, so he could actually be close enough to touch the guy without it turning into a massive display. He wants to _explain_ that this wasn’t some dumb whim or because he’s been studying too long without a break; he wants this to be a real moment and he’s not a hundred percent sure that Cas has got it yet. There’s the fact that there at Dean’s favourite diner, sure, but it’s… this is a big deal, if only in Dean’s head. “Cas, we’ve spent pretty much every night the last month in your room or together in mine,” Dean says, “I just feel like, it not being official, the two nights I did spend on my own was just cause I didn’t know if I was invited, which I realised was dumb the second I tried to freaking sleep.”

“It was three nights,” Cas corrects and he’s leaning across the table too, “They were not my favourite.”

“Exactly, dude,” Dean says, “We need a precedent. We needed some kind of rule to stop us screwing it up and over thinking, so neither of us wind up sulking alone in our rooms cause we’re not sure of the score. So now we’ve amalgamated.” 

“I wonder if Hallmark sells cards for that,” Cas says and the wind up spending the rest of lunch coming up with the most ridiculous things to give someone a card for.

*

At some point, one of them mentioned something about christening a room, and then the whole part where they were actually attending one of Charlie’s parties for the first time in approximately forever got shot to hell. Dean’s the one who’s slight tense of his fingers around the car keys in his pocket led to them making a quick exit, but Cas is the one who decided to kiss him in the stairwell rather than waiting until they got through the threshold. 

“Keys, door,” Dean mutters, as Cas manhandles him into their froom room in the best fucking way.

“What?” Cas asks, pulling away enough to stare at him blankly.

“Key still in the door,” Dean says, using the momentum to steer them back in that direction. He winds up being the one to scrabble back round to other side of the door Cas has got him pressed against to get the damn things out, freeing them before dangling them in Cas’ face. “And that’s how we get robbed, dude.”

“Is this relevant right now?” Cas asks, voice fierce and fucking _awesome_.

“You know how much it would cost us to change the locks?”

“Do you?” Cas challenges. His shirts half done and Dean’s not really sure why they’re having this conversation when they could be necking, but that kind of crap happens with Cas sometimes.“I know for a fact you didn’t read the tenancy agreement, Dean. Anyway, I took out contents insurance that would cover the cost.”

“You think they’re gonna pay out if you tell them they got our keys cause your downstairs brain left them on the outside of the door?” Dean asks, then pauses, “You got _contents insurance_?”

“Dean,” Cas huffs, rolling his eyes.

“No, seriously,” Dean says, “Contents insurance.” 

“It’s a joint policy,” Cas says, narrowing his eyes, “You’re named on the agreement too, so technically we both have contents insurance. I listed all our items of value and we have cover up to two thousand dollars with a hundred dollar excess.” 

Dean blinks. Cas is fucking beautiful, dorky, impossibly thoughtfully socially inept and _perfect_. He’s so unapologetically Castiel and Dean is so, so in love with him. No one else would take out a frigging contents insurance in his name. No one else would practically jump him in his goddamn car then get waylaid halfway through the door having a debate about their tenancy agreement. No one else could be that fucking sexy when talking about their insurance policy. 

“That should not be hot.” 

“Bedroom, Dean, _now_.”

“Who’s?” Dean grins, the second before Cas kicks the door shut behind him and drags Dean in by his jacket.

“ _Ours,_ ” Cas growls, then he kisses him again.

The keys end up under the sofa. 

*

__

_May, 2015_

He's in hospital with a stab wound and no visitors when everything is awful that it hits him that he needs to go home. He shouldn't have left. He's known that for a long damn time, but he doesn't feel it so acutely till he's locked in his own head, convinced that Cas has done something they're both gonna regret and all he wants is a fucking hug from his boyfriend come roommate and best friend. 

He breaks out of hospital and ignores the next eleven calls from his father. He drives the thousand or so miles with his foot to the floor thinking Cas, Cas, Cas.

*

_September, 2015_

Cas is still holding himself like he's waiting for another blow to come, which makes Dean’s chest hurt, but the more Cas wanders around the apartment the more the slant of his shoulders lift. Cas likes this place. He likes the view from the kitchen. He likes the fact that the bedroom is actually designed for two people. He likes the number of freaking power sockets. 

Dean pockets his hands.

“I'm in.”

He’s gotten better at reading Cas since he came back, so he can read the progression of his emotional response in the slightest twitch of his lips; excitement, then guilt, then uncertainty.

“Dean, are you _sure_ that you-?”

“Unless it turns out that Bart’s our next door neighbour, we're taking the place,” It's supposed to be a joke, but Cas’ expression folds in on itself. Dean hasn’t quite worked out when he’s allowed to joke about this yet, but they’ll get there. He just hasn’t done it yet. “Cas,” Dean says, walking across the space of their future kitchen and coaxing him in with a hand to the back. “We need to move forward, man. This is forward.”

“I just,” Cas says, glancing around the room, “We can't hide from each other in this appartment.”

“Good,” Dean says, "I'm done hiding crap from you. We know we've gotta get better at this. This is good.”

“We're not unsinkable,” 

“It's good to know that. Then you keep swimming.”

“There's no _lifeboats_ here,”

“Have a little faith,” 

“In you, always, Dean,” Cas says, looking at him seriously enough that Dean can’t doubt it. Even with all the crap they’ve been through these past couple of months - year, even - Cas has absolute faith in him. Even after the crap he’s pulled, Cas has _faith_ in him. 

“Well then,” Dean says, turning to the letting agent. “How much is the deposit again?”

*

_November, 2016_

“Fuck this so goddamn hard,” Dean says, slamming his phone stroke calculator down on the table and massaging his forehead.

“Dean, I _told_ you I don’t care who purchased the groceries on the 16th,” Cas says irritably, deliberately smoothing out one of the receipts Dean screwed up and threw across the room right before Cas snapped at him about being a child. That was half an hour ago and they’ve been stewing in their damn argument since then. They haven’t achieved a damn thing. Just sniped at each other without any real heat or aggression. “If you weren’t so pigheaded -”

“Bank statement,” Dean says, pulling his back out, “I took out forty dollars on the thirteenth.” 

“The grocery shop was twenty eight dollars,” Cas says, voice shifting into resigned.

“Okay,” Deans say, “I got cash out again on the eighteenth. You remember what the hell we did between the thirteenth and the eighteenth?”

“Date night,”

“If I paid for that _and_ the groceries, then maybe…”

“I paid for date night,” Cas says, pushing his bank statement back across the table, “There.”

“Dude, you also took our cash on the thirteenth. Also forty dollars. We go to a strip club that night or something?”

“Do you still have any cash?”

“From two weeks ago? Hell no,” Dean says, “Why the hell did we pay in cash?”

“Because we both took cash out,” Cas snipes, “Dean, does this matter?”

“I don’t freaking know,” Dean says, dropping both of their bank statements and sucking in a breath. They’ve been trying to work this out for two hours, now, and is not how he imagined spending the first friday of the month. It doesn’t make a difference that it happens every time, it always takes him by surprise. “Okay. I transfer you two hundred dollars and we call it even.”

“No,” Cas says, “Even if I paid for groceries, then you owe me a maximum of a hundred and seventy five.”

“Twenty five is paying you back from the deposit on this place,” Dean says, “Did this shit make more sense when the internet bill was in my name?” 

“No,” Cas says, “Not remotely, Dean. This process has always been ridiculous and _impenetrable_ because our finances are directly intertwined and separating them out is -” 

“ - okay,” Dean snaps, “I hear you. I get it. But you whining about this every single time isn’t freaking helping, Castiel. If we can nail this grocery thing, we’re golden.” 

“We got pizza delievery on the thirteenth,” Cas says, voice level, “You paid and tipped the delivery boy unnecessarily highly, if I remember correctly, because you were somewhat distracted at the time.” 

“Sonuvabitch,” Dean says because, okay, that does ring a bell. Mostly because ‘somewhat distracted’ is Cas code for ‘stupidly turned on’ which was entirely Cas’ fault. Apparently ‘this pizza guy said fifteen minutes so we probably don’t have time’ was a goddamn challenge. “Cas, I think we might have put in fifteen dollars each for the grocery shop. Cash cause I said it would make this whole shitstorm easier if we could just discount it.” 

“And then you said you would throw away the receipt to avoid confusion,”

“So sue me,”

“I’m sure that would be less painful,” 

“We should get a joint bank account,” Dean says, pushing the bank statement and the sea of receipts and the gas bill away from his side of the table so he can look directly at the guy. Cas stills in what Dean _thinks_ is a good way, because Cas has always hated Dean’s insistence that they go through the whole charade of balancing the books every payday (Dean’s payday, because annnoyingly enough they fall on different dates, and each month usually winds up with Dean owing _Cas_ money). It’s a leftover relic from when they were just roommates and maybe it _is_ a little ridiculous that they’re still treating this the same, but… still. He didn’t really have a solution before and he hadn’t quite been able to shake the feeling like he doesn’t want to _owe_ Cas.

They’re arguing about it, though. Dean’s dumb insecurity about being an equal partner even though he’s bringing in less money isn’t worth having an actual crappy argument every single damn month. 

“A joint bank account.”

“Cas, you hate this.”

“I don’t _care_ if we’re ‘squared up’.”

“I know, that's kind of what I'm saying, I guess. You have a point that it's tangled up enough it's kind of dumb to have it separate. Obviously I gotta send Sam money and... maybe we both pay in half our salaries or some set amount or something each month and then that money's for rent and electric and date night and all our joint expenditure,” 

“So this is a practical thing?”

“Also be pretty sweet to have our names on there together,” Dean hedges, “We’d have a better idea about what we’re saving, too. I mean, I got no idea where we’re at right now, but we have a helluva lot of joint expenses and there’s a lot of crap we’re gonna have to pay for too. I’m sure we gotta be able to afford a vacation this year.” 

“We’re both working full time, Dean, we can definitely afford to go away.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean says, glancing at Cas’ bank statement, then back at his own, “Cas, we’ve both got a couple of thousand saved. Yeah, I’m sending money to Sam but, other than that… anything big we’re buying, we’re buying together.” 

“Like a vacation,” 

“Or a house,” Dean says, as Cas looks at him with those blue, blue eyes. “Course, we still have this month’s shit to deal with.”

Cas screws up the receipt he methodically decreased and throws it in the direction of the trashcan. He misses by a good few foot, but Dean’s pretty sure he still got his message across. 

“As a wise man once said,” Cas says, standing up to properly assess the sea of paperwork, “Fuck this so goddamn hard.” 

Cas holds his gaze for a few seconds before his lips quick upwards, eyes sparkling. Dean raises an eyebrow to challenge him and that's the moment Cas sweeps all of it off the table with an overblown flourish. It's hilarious and wonderful and so typical Cas.

They screw on the table instead. 

It’s a big improvement on a shitty evening. 

*

_July, 2017_

It occurs to him that he wants to marry his boyfriend - with a wedding and a party and penguins suits - on the way to work. He'd been thinking about watching Cas brush his teeth in the doorway of the bathroom because he wanted to check out his ass and because it was nice, sometimes, to take stock. He was thinking of coming downstairs after Cas has already left for work to find coffee ready for him, anyway, and the text he got after he got out of the shower reminding him to book somewhere to eat for date night later. Cas folds his pyjamas at the end of the bed even though he barely wears them. He sends him pictures of the office emails Dean doesn't get. He says such sentimental crap so sincerely he just has to believe him. And he just really, really wants to marry the guy. 

* 

_September, 2017_

The call comes on a Thursday evening and he's not in the slightest bit ready for it.

He'd been half nagging and half teasing Cas about working on his laptop whilst they watched shitty TV about bridezillas and first dates, cause they were supposed to be hanging out but Cas was too busy pandering to fucking Zachariah to properly engage in the conversation, which was okay really. They had date nights for a reason and he didn’t exactly care. Dean was eating tomorrow’s tacos, because he was kinda bored and cause they tasted good and Cas agreed to marry him four days ago, so it wasn’t like Cas gave a damn if he got fat off leftovers and beer and nights in front of the television. He was absently texting Charlie and making quips about Cas turning into Bridezilla that Cas wasn’t really listening to. He responded about every third comment which was just enough that Dean didn’t feel like he was talking to a brick wall and it was warm and good and easy. Every advert break it would hit him all over again that they were actually gonna do it; that they were gonna head down to a registry office, or a freaking church if it made Cas happy, and legally tie their lives together forever. Then he’d nudge Cas and smile and tease him for not paying attention and Cas would frown at him over his laptop and they’d start the whole thing all over again.

It wasn't a good evening by any means, just one of many that tended to run together and were gonna run together for the rest of their lives.

He picks up the phone without registering much more than its not Sam, Bobby or Charlie calling because the area code is all wrong, but then there's a grave sounding person on the other end of the line asking him if he's Dean Winchester. 

She tells him that they've got an unidentified corpse in Bloomington, Indiana and that they found the name 'John Winchester' in a leather journal and managed to trace it back to him. 

"He has a leather journal, yeah," Dean says, voice apparently carrying enough of something that Cas mutes the television. She tells him it happened a good few weeks ago, car crash, that he had a fake driver’s licence in his wallet. That he didn't match anyone on missing persons. They found his name in the journal. 

Dean wants to tell her that's because he's always been fucking missing, but his mouth's crossed over onto autopilot already. He's asking her if he needs to fly out and identify the body before the thoughts even occurred to him. He can feel Cas watching the back of his head with that weighty glare. He tells her that last time he'd heard from him he'd been in Indiana but it wasn't unusual not to hear from him for months at a time, so they hadn't been worried. He says he matches the description. He thanks her for her attempts to track him down and tells her he'll call her when he'd made arrangements with work. All of it comes out perfectly fucking calm, then she passes on her condolences, Dean chokes out a thanks and everything goes to shit.

"Dean," Cas says, laptop suddenly shut, hand on his shoulder. 

"Dad," Dean says, because Cas heard him talk about identifying a corpse, for fucks sake, and he couldn't hear the other end of the conversation. "Bloomington, car crash. Died on impact. I gotta call Sammy I...."

"Give yourself a minute, Dean." Cas says, calm as anything. His voice is low and solid enough that he manages to catch a breath, but the words themselves just make him a little closer to losing it. 

"Cas I don't know where the fuck my heads gonna be at in a minute."

He opts for silence for that, which is fucking terrifying, because Cas doesn't know what to say. Cas has known what to say to him for the four years of their relationship and a couple of years before that, but right now he’s out. The silence turns his stomach over more than the phone call because that means this is _actually happening_.

Dean stands up, pacing, then he's scrolling through his phone and lands on Bobby, even though he knows he should be talking to Sam first. Sam deserves this from him, but he doesn't know that he can do it. Doesn't know what words are gonna come out of his mouth. Doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to say.

He blurts it all out to Bobby in a shitty, off-piece comment about John Winchester being on ice in Bloomington, aiming for levity and ending up with his voice breaking half way through the sentence. Cas is calling his boss with a hand on his knee as Dean fucks up their engagement news he’d been really looking forward to sharing (they were gonna do it that weekend, figured they’d have some time to enjoy it themselves, first) with some garbled crappy story right before Bobby hangs up to call Ellen. He congratulates him too.

It goes even worse with Sam because he’s _at the fucking library_ when he picks up the call and he doesn’t get it till Dean’s told him three times over. Even then, Dean’s not all that sure that Sam really believes it, but _Dean’s_ not sure he believes it either, except his stomach feels like lead and his throat hurts like he’s been screaming. And Cas is clasping his spare hand tight and he’s pale and quiet and he doesn’t know what to say and they don’t speak the rest of the night because there’s nothing that either of them _can_ say. He doesn’t sleep for crap and when he wakes up it’s the first day in forever (because he’s been thinking about it for months) that’s his first thought isn’t how frigging excited he is to marry Castiel.


	2. Chapter 2

_September, 2018_

"Why is your stomach making that noise?" Cas asks, sprawled across Dean's chest on their brand new sofa (definitely the most expensive piece of furniture Dean's ever bought, but the knock off one they got to fill up their old apartment wasn't worth transporting).

"Yeah, I'm thinking that place probably shouldn’t be our local Chinese take-out," Dean says, cause, yeah, Cas has a point. It doesn’t help that he decided to eat his feelings to cover the fact that there’s a lot of stuff going on right now. He hasn’t had a chance to talk to Cas, either, because he did a half-day at work whilst Cas picked Sam up from the airport and then picked up their hired moving van (which is pure bullshit, because if anyone gets to drive a frigging van, it should be Dean, and instead he got dragged into the crappy lifting and carrying furniture instead). 

Cas prods him. 

"Dude, don't _poke_ me," Dean says which, obviously, has Cas prodding him again. Dean tries to snatch Cas's hand with the one he had available, which pretty much tanks, then Cas has his hand ensnared with one free from him to sneak under Dean's shirt and rest on the plane of his abs. Well, what used to be his abs, before his desk job and his total lack of commitment took effect. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'll hit the gym soon," 

"No need," Cas says, reaching up to kiss him. It's a quick, brief thing, so Dean pulls him back for another because he needs it. His head is fucked right now and he needs to talk to Cas, but he’s got Sam on their old crappy armchair and Benny at the foot of the sofa, so it’s going to have to wait. 

Cas gets the general idea and kisses him again, slower, drawing it out. 

"You remember we're still here, right?" Sam asks from the armchair, idly sipping his beer and actually paying attention to the film they're watching. Dean lost interest at the first bit of a dialogue and he resolutely does not care. It’s their first night in their new house. He’s got bigger things to think about than the dumb film. 

"Screw you," Dean says, but it's still enough to burst his buzz and feel just a little self-conscious. "I'll get the dishes. Off, Cas." 

"I'll dry, chief," Benny says, draining his beer – his fifth or sixth, maybe – before standing up. Dean's pretty sure that he's trying to avoid Cas, cause things between them have been tense lately (and Cas has been resolutely saying nothing about it, which is unusual, but all of Dean’s pushing has achieved nothing and he has better things to talk about than their drama), but then Benny just spent his day off helping them move to their new house, so Cas can deal. 

"I was comfortable," Cas complains, but he moves anyway. Dean kisses him again, just because. 

"You bet your ass you were comfortable. That couch is worth every last dollar." 

"We'll see," Cas says, because Cas wanted a new fridge first, even though the one they've got is pretty much fine, if temperamental. He might have had a point, but they’ll deal. Not much they can do about it now. 

"Celebratory drink, chief?" Benny says, when they're in the kitchen, which is pretty much all in boxes. They'll deal with that tomorrow. 

Dean's not entirely sure that Benny hasn't had enough celebratory drinks for the both of them, but that might just be Cas' voice in the back of his head. Yeah, Benny's been hitting the bottle kinda hard for years, but him and his misses are in a rough patch and Dean just bought his first house with Castiel. It was bound to bring some stuff up. 

Still, he told Cas he wouldn't encourage him. 

"Sorry, Benny, no idea what box the good stuffs in," 

"You unpacked the glasses right, brother?" 

Dean nods vaguely to the cupboard over the sink. 

Benny's got a frigging hip flask in his pocket. 

He is going to talk to Benny about this, properly. They're gonna sit down and have the conversation. He's not doing it right now, with Sam and Cas next door, when Dean himself isn't exactly sober and this week hasn't been great. Today has been a massive pile of shit, even if they just achieved a massive adulthood/relationship goal. 

Benny pours them both a glass of whiskey. 

"Just one," Dean says, "I mean it, Benny." 

"Your boy tightening your leash?" 

"Cas can have me on whatever hell kind of leash he wants," Dean says, knocking back the jack. It's pretty crappy bourbon, but it's done. Benny tips his down his throat too. 

"Domesticated’s an interesting look on you," Benny says, as Dean dumps their plates in the sinks and sets the water running. There’s not a whole lot to wash, given they got take out. It’s just a couple of plates. 

"You got a wife and a kid, Benny," Dean says, "You're pretty domesticated yourself," 

"Guess so," Benny says, and Dean gets a flash of Benny topping up his glass in the reflection of the window. 

Dean turns around. 

"Benny, you gotta -” 

“- you gonna be tying the knot now you've got this place set up?" 

The question throws Dean off, even if a lot of people have been asking. Even if he figured people would be asking because… why wouldn’t they? 

"If we were gonna do it soon, would have done it before we signed for this. Legal nightmare getting it all squared up." 

"Cold feet?" 

"You think a marriage is harder to get out of than a mortgage?" Dean asks. 

"Looking for the exits?" 

"I'm committed," Dean says, irritable enough that he lets Benny top up his glass and slide it over to him. "What do I gotta do to convince people of that?" 

"Don't get married, brother," 

"What?" 

"Fuck’s everything," 

"Benny," Dean says. 

"Cold dead serious, Dean," 

"I get that," Dean says, "Look, marriage ain’t on the cards for me and Cas right now, so you can save your advice." 

"You were keen enough to get engaged," 

"Yeah, well, things were different then," Dean says, glaring at his glass before glancing up to meet Benny's eye. Benny is struggling. Benny’s been struggling for a long time. The last thing he needs right now is Dean’s not-quite-marital issues. “Got enough damn commitment on my plate," 

"You got a good thing going here," 

"Yeah," Dean says, but it's a little half hearted. “Just feeling a little suffocated right now. I mean, this crap all happened fast.” 

“Yeah, the dream came up pretty quick,” 

“Pretty quick?” Dean asks, “Dude, one second we were like ‘we should look into property prices’ and the next second we got a fucking mortgage. What the hell, man? Then we’re picking out more frigging furniture and just, I don’t know… my head’s a mess.” 

"You miss the good old days?" 

"College?" Dean asks, "No way, dude. Books aint my calling. I miss the people," 

"There were a lot of people," 

That’s not really what he meant, but he can go with it. 

"Damn right there were," Dean says, “Me and Cas were experts on lots of people,” 

“Dunno how your boy did it,” 

“Come on, Cas has always been hot.” 

“Ain’t my type. Was always more interested in the other side of the coin,” 

“Hah,” Dean says, turning round to find Benny taking another swig of his drink, a lot closer than he was expecting him to be. Dean’s stomach turns sour because _damnit_. “Benny, you gotta –” 

“ – you getting the itch?” 

“Huh?” 

“The leaving itch,” 

“Fuck no,” 

“You sure, chief? You’re sounding kinda restless,” 

"You know how I feel about Cas," Dean says, narrowing his eyes slightly. 

"I do," Benny says, "Damn shame," 

“Wh - ?” Dean begins, then he finds that Benny is _fully_ in his personal space in the damn kitchen, that he just bought with his fiancé, looking at him kinda off. He’s drunk. He might have been for most of the day, actually, but Dean’s been pretending he wasn’t because they had shit they needed to do but, yeah, he’s wasted. His focus is gone and it looks a hell of a lot like Cas had a good point about all of this. 

“You let me know when you need an out,” 

It takes him a minute to process what the hell is happening. 

“What the fuck, Benny?” 

“Way I see it. You and me? We’re the same, Dean,” Benny says, “We aint made to be house trained. We don’t fit. And after a while, that starts to weigh on you. When that starts getting to you? I’m right here,” 

“Yeah, I’m out of this shit storm,” Dean says, jaw set, “Whatever bullcrap issue you’re drowning in here, you’re not pulling me into it.” He nearly slams into Sam on the way out, who’s paused in the doorway with a face like he’s heard _a lot_ of what just happened and is the opposite of happy about it. Cas is oblivious on the sofa looking cute and almost soft, with Dean’s discarded hoodie bunched up as a pillow. “Cas,” Dean says, “Benny needs a ride home.” 

“Of course,” Cas says, frowning slightly. 

“That aint –“ 

“ – shut your mouth, Benny, and get in the goddamn car before I do something I regret,” Dean snaps, which has Cas’ mouth part in surprise before he stands up and reaches for his car keys. “Sorry, Cas, but you’re the only one under the limit.” 

“I’m –“ Sam begins. 

“ – it’s not a problem,” Cas says, “Benny,” 

“Okay, angel,” Benny says, which is irritating enough that Dean nearly punches him anyway. God _damnit_. 

“What the hell, Dean?” Sam asks, the second they’re out the front door. 

“Sam,” Dean says, “Butt out,” 

“No,” Sam says, “Dean, what just happened?” 

“Load of bullshit, is what. Damnit, Benny,” Dean mutters, storming to the kitchen and drying plates because Benny never did, grinding his teeth. “That _asshole_.” 

“Dean,” 

“Give me a damn minute, Sam,” Dean says, slamming down the plates, “I gotta process some crap right now.” 

It's only a five minute drive to Benny's place (apparently, the stipulation of 'decent price and family friendly' didn't change in the few year gap between Benny-and-wife purchasing and Dean and Cas purchasing) and Dean wastes the whole ten minutes being angry instead of working out how the hell to communicate the last ten minutes to his fiancé. 

He's completely unprepared when Cas pushes his way back through the door. 

"Hey," Dean grunts, stepping back into the front room. Everything's in boxes. The sofa still has part of the packaging on it. The level to which Dean does not want to deal with the endless amount of unpacking is high and is only making him more irritated about all of it. It’s all such a goddamn _mess_. 

"Are you going to tell Cas what just happened?" Sam asks. 

"I would if you gave me a damn chance, Sammy," Dean snaps, "Full disclosure, Cas, Benny tried to hit on me in the kitchen because he’s fucking _asshole_. ” 

"That's not full disclosure," Sam snaps. 

"What?" 

"Dean, I _heard_ you,” 

“You mean you eavesdropped and think you heard something,” Dean says, turning on his brother. Sam has got his self-righteous Sam mode on, which does not bare well for whatever it is that Sam’s gonna say about all of this. He looks _worried_ which is only going to serve as more source of justification for butting in. 

"I heard you going on about how you you don't wanna get married and how the house is too much commitment." 

"What the fuck, Sam?" Dean asks, "Way to take things out of context and throw me under the bus." 

"You need to grow up, Dean," 

"And you need to butt out," Dean snaps back. 

"I can't believe you _still_ have commitment issues -" 

"- I'll marry Cas. I'll marry Cas right fucking now." 

"No thank you," Cas interjects. "I would also like to remind you both that I am _right here_ and rather than both defending my honour, you might talk to me." 

"You know I don't wanna get married right now," Dean blurts out. 

"Yes I do," Cas says, "Or not I do, I suppose," 

"Dude," 

"Benny hit on you," 

"Yeah," Dean says, voice tight. "I told him to fuck off, obviously. Cas, don't be... I mean we were joking around, but I didn't -" 

"-I know Dean," Cas says, "But I also told you his alcohol problem was -" 

"- and I was gonna deal with it. I was gonna talk to him, but with the house and..." 

"No, that wasn't supposed to be a criticism of you," Cas says, and for a minute Dean thinks that means they're not gonna argue." Cas turns to Sam. "Sam, I know it would make more sense to you if we decided on a wedding date, but currently that is not in the plan and it has nothing to do with your brother's commitment issues." 

"And also, Sam, who says I have commitment issues? Yeah maybe when I was a goddamn teenager, but that's not commitment issues that's being young and wanting to fuck around issues. The second me and Cas got our crap stowed I was done. You're the one with the revolving door girlfriends and the new apartment every two weeks -" 

"- Dean," 

"No, I'm pissed off. Who said you could drop in here and stir?" 

"Cas is family. You invited him into our family and....you you were talking like you were about to take off." 

"That's bull. I'm not going anywhere." 

"Dean, you just bought this house. You're supposed to be happy about that. You've been weird all day." 

"Don't tell me how I should feel," 

"You have been... off, today," Cas says, fixing him with one of his looks. 

"Don't you start riding my ass too," 

"Dean, I am _very_ happy right now," Cas says, sounding the exact opposite of happy, but he's pretty sure that pointing that out would go down about as well as Benny's come on. 

"Good for you," Dean mutters, grabbing one of the empty beer bottles to dump it in the trash. 

"Are you happy right now?" Cas asks, so then Dean just can't walk out the room. He doesn't answer quick enough, either, then Cas' voice turns cold and Dean is so, so in trouble. "Dean, do you regret buying this house with me?" 

"It's complicated," Dean says, fixed under Cas' gaze. He puts down the empty beer bottles, because he's probably gonna be there for a while. 

"No it isn't. One word, Dean". 

"Last thing I need right now is a fight. Seriously, man." 

"Right now, this second, do you regret buying this house?" 

"No," 

"You're lying," 

"Fucking fine, yes. Yes," Dean says. Cas' expression arranges into stoic and, oh yeah, he's gonna get it. He’s unlocked the highest level of pissed-off Castiel in front of his brother and he has no viable option of derailing this whole thing. "This exact _second_ I do." 

"Dean, if you're not - " 

"-I am frigging committed, Cas, Jesus Christ. You don't get to bitch at me when you haven't let me talk," 

"You haven't said anything about this previously." 

"Cause there wasn't anything to say," Dean snaps, "I just feel like we're cursed, okay? Like we make a step forward then the shit rains. I feel like it's gonna keep happening." 

"Why?" 

"Is this about Dad?" Sam asks, "Is that why you don't want to get married?" 

"Sam, no, it's... I mean, yeah, it's part of it. Part of a big complicated thing that me and my _fiancé_ have talked about. A lot. " 

"We haven't talked about this," 

"Cas I'm... Damnit. Will you just listen to me? It's not about you." 

"I'm beginning to get that." 

"Not like _that_ for fucks sake." 

"Then like _how_?" 

"Cas, this is a huge financial commitment. We're gonna have a mortgage forever. I mean, pretty much forever." 

"A mortgage which is almost cheaper than our previous rent," 

"Yeah, but, if we needed to back out -" 

"-why do you need to back out?" 

"Goddamnit, Cas, will you quit being insecure? I don't mean back out on _us_." 

"Just our life," 

"Have I given you a reason to doubt me?" Dean asks, throwing his hands in the air, "I swear, man, if I've given you a good reason then I'm sorry, but I got nothing right now," 

"This _conversation_ is causing me doubt," 

"This conversation is bullshit. Some stuff happened today that I haven't had a chance to talk to you about yet, cause we were moving out, by the way, and instead of giving me the benefit of the frigging doubt you're trying to crucify me." 

"And that's changed your view on this house," 

"No," Dean says, "Not the house, not you, but buying _this_ house. And you," Dean says, turning around to point at Sam, "Are sticking your opinion where it don't belong because you want to be involved in my relationship, which you aint. And you're having my ass because you're just as scared about having a frigging mortgage as me and this is giving you excuse not to ecstatically happy, which is _fine_ because this is goddamn scary, except you've managed to club together to make me the bad guy. My _best friend_ just hit on me in my damn kitchen and you two are teaming up all of a sudden and you need to _give me a break_." 

"What happened today?" Cas asks, rearranging his voice into concern that's almost definitely genuine. 

Dean sits down on their crazy expensive sofa. 

"The level of which I don't want to talk about this right now as astronomical," 

"Moving house is one of the psychologically stressful things a person can experience, after death of a partner and divorce," Cas says, which Dean's pretty sure is Cas apologising and admitting at least some liability for the whole argument in the first place, even if it's a pretty crap attempt. It’s Cas though. He can’t be mad at Cas right now. 

"Actually, I think they disproved that," Sam says, then shuts up again. Sam hasn’t worked out the balance of all this yet. He hasn’t really ever been given the chance to, especially when they’re angry at each other. 

"Of course I trust you, Dean," Cas says, palm of his hand resting on Dean’s arm, coaxing him out of his irritation. It’s a little frustrating how much it works. Castiel can read him like a book. 

"I know," Dean grumbles, acquiescing to Cas’ touch. "I'm just...what the fuck, Benny? I know you guys aren't exactly best buds, but I figured after all this time he'd at least respect you enough not to..." 

"I'm assuming he was drunk," 

"Yeah," Dean says, "Not that that's an excuse," 

"He's an alcoholic, Dean," 

"Cas, that's... alcoholic is a big word to throw around," 

"His wife has threatened him with either rehab or no contact with Elizabeth," Cas says, "I walked into a phone call. It's why he's been avoiding me. He assured me he'd speak to you. He hasn't been allowed unsupervised access to his daughter for weeks. I think he’s intending to walk out," 

"On his kid," Dean says, throat tight, "On his _daughter_. Goddamnit, Benny." 

"Dean, it's..." 

"Not our problem right now," Dean interjects, closing his eyes, "Can we watch another movie and forget this... stuff ever happened?" 

"Yes," Cas says, resting a hand on his arm, running a thumb over his bicep. 

"Sam's turn to pick," Dean says, sinking into Castiel's touch a little, "I'm thinking warmed up Chinese and a soda," 

"The microwave is packed in the box with your record collection." 

"The hell does that make sense?" 

"You packed," 

"Well, clearly, I aint qualified." 

"How the hell are you still hungry?" Sam asks, falling into the swing of things a little late, but getting there anyway. It figures. He and Cas worked out this rhythm a long ass time ago. Sam's playing catch up. Dean's not sure how he feels about that. 

"Got a lot of boxes to unpack tomorrow," Dean grimaces, “Need to keep my strength up.” 

Cas goes to bed early. 

Dean pretends to think he’s asleep to avoid having a conversation because he’s not ready to talk yet. 

* 

He wakes up to an empty bed and finds Cas in their kitchen, surrounded by boxes and boxes of their joint belongings. He looks the kind of miserable Cas always looks when he hasn’t slept well and hasn’t had enough coffee yet but Dean’s not naive to think that lack of caffeine is the problem. Cas crawls back into bed with coffee for them both enough days a week for Dean to know what that means. 

They’ve been together for long enough now to have four different silent unacknowledged conversations about how the other’s feeling before breakfast. 

“Morning,” Dean says, stepping over the boxes of Castiel’s college books (like he still needs them now but, whatever, Dean knew he’d lose that battle and didn’t bother engaging in it) to get to the square of kitchen table that Cas has perched himself at. 

“Here,” Cas says, pushing a mug in his direction, which at least means that Dean isn’t fully in the dog’s house yet. Cas is unhappy, sure, but he’s reserving judgement before Dean really gets the pissed off treatment. “Dean,” 

“Yeah, Cas, just… give me a minute,” Dean says, moving a box of something that rattles so he can sit down next to him. “Sam up?” 

“Out for a run,” 

“Freak,” Dean says, dragging his chair close so he can rest a hand on Cas’ knee and goad him into looking in his direction. Cas turns reluctantly and fixes a frown in Dean’s direction. Dean would kind of like a kiss but that doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen until Dean’s coughed up his explanation and laid it all bare. 

“I didn’t push you yesterday,” Cas points out, before Dean can even try and reschedule the damn conversation. 

“Right,” Dean scoffs, “You mean after you nailed me to the cross?” 

“I dislike religious references, which you are fully aware,” Cas says, “Dean, you said you regret buying a house with me.” 

“Cause you cornered me into it,” Dean says, tightening his grip on his coffee, “And took everything out of context,” 

“What I am asking for is _context_ ,” Cas says, mouth an unhappy slant, “If you won’t speak to me whilst your brother is in the building then –” 

“ – I might be losing my job, Cas,” Dean butts in, “You and Sam made the whole thing out like it was about commitment or you or this house but I just… I’m just freaked about money, okay?” 

“Your job,” Cas says, voice completely neutral. 

“The reason they wouldn’t let me have the whole day off yesterday was cause they called this shitty meeting and they announced this crap about efficiency in process and reshuffling,” Dean says, through the lump in the back of his throat, “Which is code for a bucket load of redundancies,” 

“This assumption is based on code?” 

“No,” Dean says, “It’s based on the fact that they told us we all gotta reapply for our jobs. They’re cutting my team by a third. They just… damnit, Cas, they just threw it on me yesterday and we were fucking moving and Sam and Benny were here and… Cas, I might lose my job. You know I love this dumb house I just… damnit. Last thing I need is you being mad at me,” 

“Dean,” Cas says, voice low, “I’m not mad at you,” 

“Not mad at me now, maybe,” Dean says, “You couldn’t just _trust_ me, yesterday? What the hell, Cas?” 

“You said you regretted purchasing this house,” 

“Because you made me say that! You framed the damn question like that without giving me any room to explain my side of the damn story –“ 

“ – you _chose_ to let me believe you regretted it because –” 

“ – no, you jumped to conclusions because, apparently, you don’t trust me,” 

“Dean, why would I assume that you’re on the cusp of losing your job?” 

“Why would you assume I’m not committing to our damn relationship?” Dean snaps back, shoulders tensing up. 

“We can manage without your income if it comes to that,” 

“How?” Dean asks, “We have a _mortgage_ , two cars, I’ve still got student loans, our bills are gonna be up now we’re in a house, I still owe Bobby, we got that trip planned. You wanna do up the kitchen and get a new frigging fridge and we just spent, like, all our savings on a sofa and Sam’s still in college and –” 

“ – I can take the promotion Zachariah has been pushing on me,” 

“I thought we decided you weren’t gonna do that,” 

“Dean, if it’s _necessary_ then –” 

“No fucking way am I letting you pay my way. If you have to do it short time, I’m paying you back.” 

“We have a _mortgage together_ Dean,” Cas says, heat lacing his voice, “At this point, our finances are beyond separation.” 

“ – I’m not relying on your money, Cas.” 

“ _This_ is why I question your commitment to our ‘damn relationship’,” 

“What?” 

“What’s mine is yours, Dean.” 

“So now you do wanna get married?” Dean demands, “Is that what this is about?” 

“You are utterly missing my point.” 

“Then _make_ a point,” 

“I understand why the uncertainty around your job would make you regret this decision,” Cas says, exiting the kitchen and taking his coffee with him. 

It’s not exactly how he picture the first morning in their own house to go, but then being in love with Castiel has always been surprising. 


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Dean’s out the shower, Cas is in a terrible mood.

The guy gets cranky on the regular, but it's not often that he walks around like he can bring down lightning and thunder with his scowl. Generally, Dean either pokes the bear till they can yell it out and move the hell on, or goes the sentimental route and more or less hugs his grouchiness into submission. With Sam now drinking coffee between the stacks of boxes in their kitchen, neither option sounds appealing. 

“Deal with your brother,” Cas says, waylaying him in the doorway to the kitchen, voice unremitting and, absolutely, that's an order. 

“Deal with your brother?” Dean repeats, “Dude, you're not my handler.”

“Dean,” Cas says, and he is so not arguing with that voice. Anyway, Sam is _right there_ , in the same room (nice, Cas) and he really, really doesn’t want a fight in front of his brother. They basically already ticked that off the checklist yesterday and they’ve got enough to sift through without adding more irritation into the fray.

“Deal how?” 

“Take him out for breakfast,” Cas says, “Go.”

“Cas,” Dean counters, reaching out to tug on the bottom of Cas’ shirt and quirk an eyebrow at him. “Let me know if you want me to pick anything up while I’m out.”

He's not dumb enough to go for an actual kiss, but he claps him on the shoulder and Cas leans into the touch, so things could definitely be worse.

“Okay, Sam,” Dean says, stepping past Cas and fully into the room. “Breakfast.”

Apparently, Sam has better manners than Cas, because he doesn’t call him out on it till they’re in the car.

“You let Cas order you around like that?” Sam asks, which is way too fucking inflammatory considering Sam is half the reason they’re even arguing. Goddamnit. 

“You wanna head back in there and argue with him?” Dean asks, putting the impala into gear and pulling her out the drive, _their drive_. 

“Dean.”

“He didn’t mean it like that,” Dean says, “He’s not pissed at you, just me.” 

“And that’s okay? It’s okay for someone to just… bark orders and for you to just accept them.” 

“He’s not acting a damn thing like Dad, Sam, so shut up,” Dean says, which plummets them into the kind of silence he never used to believe he could experience with Sam. He never _wanted_ them to get to a point where the air could be thick with so much distance. 

“I wasn’t talking about Dad.”

“Good,” Dean snaps, hands clenched around the wheel. “It’s fine, Sam. Me and Cas are good. You need to stop diagnosing us problems and start leaving us be.”

“He just…”

“Woke up on the wrong side of bed. He’s an asshole sometimes, I’m not exactly prince charming. He just wanted me to talk to you so he didn’t get dragged into our fight, ‘cause getting in the way of our thing is the last frigging thing he wants to do. It’s _considerate_ if you ignore the shitty delivery and the bad attitude. Five years is long enough to start listening to the subtext and I can quibble the rest when he calms down. So, quit worrying and concentrate on not butting in.” Dean says, “Cause, frankly, I’m still pissed at you about yesterday.”

“Dean, you were talking like -”

“- talking don't mean anything. I didn't do a damn thing wrong last night.”

“You said that you 'had enough commitment on your plate'.” Sam says, fixing him with one of the _looks_ he’s been sending him since he was nine years old, where he’s so damn convinced he’s caught Dean doing something stupid and is prematurely getting righteous about it. Problem is, he’s been a lot less right about being righteous recently. It’s probably the inevitable consequence of the fact they’ve now been living apart for seven years. He still doesn’t know how he feels about it, though.

“I do, Sam! I have a freaking mortgage.” Dean says, pulling in the parking lot of the diner that he and Cas visit on Saturdays when neither of them feel like cooking, which feels like it’s been most of them recently. They're gonna have to cut that out now they're income might drop.

“Dean,”

“Dammit, Sam. Six months ago I wrote a fucking will naming Cas as my next of kin. Medically, he's my emergency contact. Legally, if I lose my mind he gets to make decisions. He gets to turn off my life support machine. Only thing he doesn't get is half my damn money and the impala, which come to you. Given about ninety percent of my savings are in our joint bank account, that don't leave you with a whole lot, but he already said he'd put you through the rest of college on my behalf. We have a joint mortgage with a fifty fifty stake each. We are as legally tied up as we can be without heading down to the town hall and getting hitched, okay? There's no commitment problem here.”

Sam is quiet.

“Let’s get some goddamn breakfast,” Dean says, slamming out the car and sucking in a breath of air because, crap and _fuck_ , that is not how he wanted that conversation to go.

“Okay,” Sam says, following him to the doorway, eyes still dissecting him, slowly, like he's just waking up.

“Look,” Dean says, when they’re sat down with menus, “I was gonna talk to you about all this. Actually talk to you, not yell it at you, 'cause I didn't want you to think... I didn't do it behind your back or out of spite or -”

“- Dean, it makes sense for you to legally protect Cas' right as your fiancé and your longtime partner to have a say in decisions. I'm not upset about you wanting Cas to have the deciding vote about any of that.”

“Not undermining you,” Dean mutters. 

“- and I assumed that all of that would happen when you got married, anyway, so what I don't get is why you didn't just _get married_. Even if you’re not not wedding mad, it’s a lot less paperwork than all of that.”

He’s not wrong, it’s just that’s not the whole picture. He came out of this tunnel of blackness after a solid month of this _anger_ and sense of loss that stretched way beyond John Winchester’s current role in his life, straight into this nightmare where every worse case scenario kept playing out in his head over and over, till he couldn’t think past what would happen if he got hit by a bus before he was in the right headspace to marry Cas. Then it was just imperative that it was all sorted, quickly, and absolutely.

He didn’t even think about the implications about what that meant about _Sam_ until a few weeks later.

“It seemed important and then it didn't. That's all there is to it. Think I’m gonna get the bacon special,” Dean says, flicking the menu shut and trying to catch the eye of the waitress to save him from this crappy conversation. 

“Because of Dad?”

He is not loving how much John Winchester is coming up in conversation today.

“No,” Dean says, in the most _yes_ way he can manage, in the hope that maybe Sam will just fucking drop it. It’s not like they’ve talked a great deal about the biting, raw grief that comes sharp with regret and anger and all the bullshit emotions he’d been forcing back the whole time his father was alive. He assumed Sam knew that he didn’t _want_ to talk about it. That he lost it for a while, back there, with only Cas holding him together somehow with his distilled goodness, his steadfast presence, his everything. If he ever needed proof of how wholly he depends on Castiel, it was right there. 

“Dean, do you really think -?” 

“It was less than a year ago, Sam,” Dean says, voice sharp, finally managing to capture the attention of the waitress to order the biggest breakfast on the menu, with extra bacon, because that might help with the emptiness that threatens to close up his windpipe when he thinks about John Winchester too much. _Damnit_. He orders an extra strong coffee too and doesn’t even mock Sam when he orders an omelette without cheese. “Look, marriage is this whole big thing to Cas. It's sacred. It's _holy_ matrimony and half the reason it matters to Cas is that, being two guys, we don't automatically qualify. When we first talked about it at graduation - theoretically, way theoretically - Cas wanted to as a protest vote. It'd have been complicated under Kansas law, at that point. I said five years back then. Was just picking a number out of the air, really.”

“You've been together for five years now,”

“Five in November,” Dean says, “Maybe if I hadn't have jumped the gun, we'd just have started talking about it now, but I didn’t.”

“You proposed.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “I wanted it. I really did. We were gonna pick out a date. The whole shebang.”

“And then Dad died.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “The same week, Sammy, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop those things being connected in my head. We stopped talkin’ about it for a long time because I was a mess,”

“ - Grieving, Dean. It’s called grieving.” 

“Then we did talk about it, but I didn’t… I don’t feel the same about the whole thing as I did. It’s not _Cas_. It’s just marriage. Cas’ family probably wouldn’t show. Cas wants this to be _holy_ and perfect and, hell, he knows that I don’t buy into this church crap, but if I can’t even be happy for the regular secular reasons ‘cause of all the people missing, then it ain’t fair because I wouldn’t be delivering on what he wants and what I was initially proposing. We’ve had equal marriage for three years; Cas found churches that would do it. It's not a protest, it's not gonna make a difference to our lives and it's not gonna change how either of us feel. Looks a helluva lot like a box ticking exercise right now and that’s not what Cas was signing up for.”

“You could have asked me to help with the paperwork,” Sam says, bitching a little, but it's at least a concession and conversation switch. Sam has read his distress and is prepared to stop hounding him about this. That's basically him blessing the whole thing.

“You're not a qualified yet, last I checked.”

“But you did get someone to check it all over? Sam asks, “Because, seriously Dean, they've made it much more difficult to make it stick since Trump -”

“-don't even start in front of Cas, dude.” Dean says, “You can check it if you promise me you won't mention fucking Trump in our house. Every damn time he gets upset about the American people, like it's a personal betrayal -” 

“- Dean, it kind of _is_.”

“- stop,” Dean says, running a hand over his face and shaking his head, “I know, man, I just can't deal with him swinging from acting like a wounded puppy to signing up to join the protests and signing online petitions like they make a damn difference. I have a whole system worked out for talking him back from the brink, but if we could avoid it that would he freaking awesome.”

“You have a system?” Sam asks, smirking a little, and that carries them through until the bacon arrives.

*

They've cleared a little of the tension between them by the time they're back from breakfast and have done a run of the hardware store to pick up the shade of not-quite- white Cas wanted, even though it’s four dollars a tin more expensive than one Dean's pretty sure is exactly the same for no discernible reason. He's got the impression that there's a lot more that Sam wanted to say, though, and that his little brother is going to continue to assess them both over the rest of the weekend, but Dean’s not giving another inch. There’s no reason why he _should_ when Sam is the one butting in.

Cas looks a little better when he appears from the stack of boxes in what's going to be the dinning room when they get that far, if a little ruffled.

“Hey,” Dean says, setting two tins of paint down on the newspapered section of the room, “Made any progress?”

“If 'progress' you mean moving boxes from one pile to another, yes.” Cas frowns, “Hello Sam. Apologies for earlier. I didn't - ”

“- You eaten? Cause I bought you something,” 

“I was rude, to both of you.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, stepping close to flatten his mess of hair into something a little more like his usual state, smiling at him, “Damned rude. Moving’s a big stressor, like you said.”

“That doesn't excuse - ”

“ - are we painting some freaking walls, or what?” Dean asks, “We can leave your study yellow, if you want, or we can get the hell on with this.”

“You mentioned food,” 

“Here,” Dean says, holding up the bag, “We still starting with the bathroom?”

“It is very… fuchsia,” Sam voices.

“You bought the flat matt emulsion,” Cas says, sending him one of those _looks_ like he’s done something incredibly romantic or ‘pleasing’ even though he just picked up a couple of tins of paint as mostly instructed. 

“Whatever makes you happy, Sweetheart.”

“You’re an excellent fiance,” Cas says, offering him the first smile of the day. It kind of sucks that it’s their first actual day in their new house and it took him this long to win one, but still. Cas smiling at him like that always feels like a victory.

“I’ll go put sheets down in the bathroom,” Sam says, clearing his throat.

They’re a hundred percent going to rip out the carpet, too, but he’s still irritated enough at his brother to let him waste time putting sheets down unnecessarily. Especially as Cas sways into his presence when they’re alone again, gaze that shade of blue that makes him feel like a fucking superhero. Damnit, he’s so stupidly in love with the guy.

“I don’t regret buying this freakishly decorated house with you,” Dean says, “And I’m gonna regret it even less when it doesn’t feel like I’m supposed to be colourblind to live here.”

“I know,” Cas says, cupping his face with his hands and pulling him into a kiss. “I’m sorry your job is uncertain and we will talk about it properly.”

“After Sam’s back in California,” Dean says, tugging on the old shirt Cas has donned for their moving/organising/painting extravaganza, which definitely used to belong to Dean. He thinks Cas might have laid claim to it back in the early days, or maybe just after their almost-split “We’ll talk.” 

“Yes,”

“And you’ll tell me what the hell crawled up your ass,” Dean adds, “Then we can work out a plan.”

*

By the time they’ve painted the most offensively-decorated rooms and rearranged the furniture, again, so they can make some headway on the spare bedroom, it’s late and even Dean kind of feels like he doesn’t want another meal of junk. In the end, they settled on Dean heading to walmart to buy something they can cook with just the grill and zero pans (packed, apparently, ‘somewhere in the garage’), while Sam and Cas try and make at least one room livable. They’ve got till Monday before Sam’s flying home and they’re both back at work Tuesday, so the plan had been to at least have a functional kitchen, bedroom and bathroom by that point.

They might just make it, if they stop losing so much time to bickering. They’re a man down, too, but no one’s mentioned that today, which Dean’s pleased about. Thinking about Benny flares up a frustrated itch under his skin that makes him want to break something. 

“Burgers,” Dean says, stepping back into the madhouse with a pack of them under his arm. Sam makes a face which sparks off them goading each other about rabbit food comfortably enough.

“Next time, get it yourself, 'stead of getting me to run round after your ass.”

“Sure, Dean, let's ignore the fact I'm giving up my weekend to help you move,” Sam says, but in the okay, good natured kind of way that's more in line with the normal conversations.

“Like you had anything better to do, Mr full freaking ride, unless you’re planning revenge of the nerds mark two.”

“About that,” Sam says, “You know you don't have to put me through college, right?”

That he's not expecting.

Dean shuts the oven door a little too forcefully, given that's actually _their oven_ that they're gonna be using till it breaks and dies. They own white goods, now; they're adult as fuck. 

“You said Cas said he'd put me through college if you died. Obviously, that's not going to happen, but seriously Dean, you don't need to be sending me money.”

“I'm not an idiot, Sam, I know your full ride don't cover your rent. You've got bills to pay.”

“Right,” Sam says, “That _I've_ got to pay.”

“Dad used your college fund to buy gas to drive away from his problems,” Dean snaps, “Someone's gotta bridge the gap.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “ _Me_.” 

“Did Cas tell you I might be losing my job? Is that why you're coming up with his crap?” Dean asks, setting down the burgers to glare at him.

“No, he didn't,” Sam says, “but if that's _true_ , then you definitely shouldn't -”

“ - I don't need your charity.”

“Dean, that doesn't even make sense. I'm not giving you anything. I'm just refusing to take your money.”

“Refusing, huh?” Dean asks, his jaw clenching. 

“Dean, I can do this myself. You did it yourself.”

“I got an average degree that got me a line on my Resume that makes me a little less unemployable than I was previously; you're getting a law degree from Stanford. I busted my ass working and still has to borrow money for Bobby to finish up. It's not the same thing.”

“Because dad spent your college money too, not that half of _that_ was true.” Sam counters, “Look, Dean, no one is expecting you to do this. If Dad… if he'd been sending me money before he died, no one would expect you to pick up the slack. You're the only person who thinks this is your job.”

“So you're just gonna run up student loan debts and battle your way through?”

“Yes, Dean, because you have a _life_ ,” Sam says, “Dean, if I need money, I'll come to you and I'll ask. I promise. But you don't need to keep sending money every month. I don't want you to.”

“Okay,” Dean says, jaw set. “That's the way you want to play it, fine.”

“It's not like I'm not grateful. I couldn't have gone to college without you. “

“Well , snap,” Dean says, because it’s true. He wouldn’t have done it without Sam, Bobby and Ellen’s combined effort to make him think it was worth it.

“You might be losing your job?”

“Hm. There's gonna be a load of redundancies at work. Told us yesterday.”

“Right,” Sam says, mouth unreadable. Guilt, maybe. He’s definitely putting it together.

“Screw this,” Dean says, heading into where Cas is trying to locate the plates. “Cas, where's our legal bullshit? The wills and stuff.”

To his credit, Cas doesn’t question why the hell Dean wants to look at their wills halfway through cooking dinner, barely even fixes him with one of those head titled looks.

“The freezer,” Cas says, elbow deep in a box Dean’s pretty sure doesn’t have plates in.

“What?” 

“The freezer.”

“Dude,”

“If the house burns down, the freezer is fire retardant,” Cas says, “My mother used to… it makes sense, Dean.”

“Well okay,” Dean says, “Sure, Sam, you can check out our docs if you wait for them to _defrost_ first.”

“The freezer isn't turned on yet,” Cas says, like Dean’s the one being obtuse.

“What happens if the freezer’s explodes and wipes us out?”

“Bobby has a copy in Sioux Falls,” Castiel says, frowning at him, “And there's a copy at the bank. We discussed this.”

“Huh,” Dean says, because it's plausible. Cas wouldn't have send a copy of their sodding wills to Bobby without his permission, but he doesn't remember much more about the whole thing than his unnecessary panic ebbing when Cas signed the damn thing and the solicitor told them they were good to go. They probably talked about the rest on the way home. He doesn't remember.

“Thank you for looking over the documentation, Sam,” Cas says, but he's looking at Dean. Last Cas knew, he was still trying to work out a way to tell Sam he'd be bumped as next of kin. He’d encouraged him to have the conversation this weekend, but Dean had argued it wasn’t the kind of thing that came up naturally. Guess Cas won that argument all by accident.

By the time the burgers have done, Sam has skimmed over all of it and Cas has found a few plates.

“Seems like you covered all of it,” Sam says, after he's put the folder back in the freezer. “The wording was smart; you shouldn't need to update it now you've got the house. It seems pretty… solid.”

“We both kick it, you get the house,” Dean says, “Pretty sure we put that in, right?”

“We did,” Cas says, “Although I imagine my family could try to attest it.”

“Maybe,” Sam says, “but I don't think they'd have much grounds. You're pretty clear.” 

“And if we did get married?”

“It would still stand,” Sam says.

Cas doesn't ask any other questions, but Dean’s got a feeling he wants to. 

* “What are we watching?” Dean asks, heading back into the sitting room after he's done the dishes. They concluded over food that they're all giving up for the day, because it's still a Saturday night and they've still been working at it all damn day.

“Ru Paul's drag race,” Cas says, attention rapt on the screen, but aware enough of Dean’s movements to shift his legs off the other side of the sofa.

“Dude, why?” Dean complains, finding his spot next to Cas and raising an eyebrow at the screen.

“I like it,” 

“But _why_ , Cas? It's first grade trash.”

“You are aware you speak as a person who owns the box set of Dr Sexy,” Cas counters, stretching his legs back to their previous position, resting across Dean’s lap. Dean places a hand on his knee and narrows his eyes at the screen.

“Different kind of trash,” Dean says, eyes catching on where Sam's starring with the same kind of intent as his fiance. “You too, Sam?”

“My roommate watches it,” Sam shrugs.

“Unbelievable,” Dean says, as Cas absently runs his hands through Dean’s hair.

“The wrong kind of gay for you?” Cas asks, the slight challenge right there. Not in a bad way. Cas has been helping him tease out the masses of prejudices and internal bullshit for years, and this is usually how he does it. Just talk until they’ve both managed to work him out.

“Not saying I don't object to the whole world thinking I give a crap about fashion cause I'm hooked up with a dude, but no, that's not my problem.”

“You still suffer that conception despite persistently dressing like a lumberjack?”

“Oh, screw you, you third tier agent jackass,” Dean grins, as Cas runs a thumb over the collar of his shirt. 

“Why do you find the show problematic?”

“Not problematic, just don't see why I should give a damn about it just cause I like dick.”

“I'm not saying there's an obligation; but there's an argument for defending visibility and celebrating LGBT culture,” Cas says, voice low enough that it’s obvious he’s not really talking to Sam. This isn’t a _group_ discussion.

“This isn't my culture. Not, there's nothing wrong with it, obviously, people can do whatever they want; but it ain't mine. Don't see it's my duty to defend visibility, anyway.”

“That’s… interesting,” Cas says, tilting his head slightly, “I think I disagree with you. I think visibility is always important, even if it’s in a form you don’t personally identify with.”

“I think Bobby and Ellen might be, you know,” Sam says, from his seat on their armchair, which is enough of a surprise interjection into their conversation that it throws Dean completely.

“Might be what?”

“I think your brother is inferring they're sleeping together,” Cas says, mildly.

“Okay I meant more _in a relationship_ , but there abouts,” 

“Bobby and Ellen? No way. They're like our parents. They ain't having sex.”

“Hate to break it to you, Dean, but Mom and Dad definitely hooked up at least twice.”

“My parents too,” Castiel adds, because he’s fucking hilarious like that, “It’s endemic.”

Sam’s face breaks out into a surprised smile as he catches Cas’ eye and Dean nearly forgives him for butting in on the spot. He fucking _loves_ that Cas and Sam get on as well as they do.

“Bbby gets around, Dean. Remember Eleanor? His next door neighbour?” 

“But _Ellen_?” Dean says, “No fucking way.”

“I’m surprised you’re surprised by this,” Cas says, sending a crumpled frown his way, then looking back towards his brother. “I always thought it was fairly obvious, like us.” Dean doesn’t voice the fact that, however obvious they are in retrospect, it sure as hell didn’t feel that obvious when he was living it. "They seemed very close at the funeral.”

“Yeah, that's when I first thought…and then well, every time I've called lately they've both been there. Kind of like how whenever I call you Cas is in the background.”

He didn't have much mental capacity to spare at the fucking funeral to note anything about Ellen and Bobby. He can remember a couple of shitty eulogies and the solid weight of Cas’ hand; he clutched onto it every single moment it felt like no one was looking, grounding himself with his ‘Cas is right there’ mantra, till the whole day disappeared down the drain and it was just, over. Just like that.

“They're friends,” Dean deadpans.

“So were you and Cas,” Sam says, before he gets distracted by the end of the ad break, “Now you’re getting all socially analytical about drag, cosied up in your co-owned house.”

“Shut up,” Dean says, throwing a pillow at Sam’s head, which gets Cas sending him a frown for moving too much. “We're cute.”

“Adorable,” Sam smirks at him, throwing the pillow back at his face. “And Cas, do you think visibility is ipso facto important, even if it has negative connotations?” 

Freaking college nerds. 

“That depends whether the negative connotations are being equated with the fact that a person is LGBT, or are happenstance. I would prefer the world to acknowledge that sexuality has absolutely no baring on anything but sexuality, but in the meantime there's a necessity to have a culture and to celebrate that culture when it's visible.”

“And you get all this from Ru Paul's drag race?”

“No Dean,” Cas says, “ I just enjoy the lip syncing.”

“There's lip syncing?”

“There is lip syncing,” Cas confirms.

“Fucking hell,” Dean mutters.

“You’ll survive,”

“You’re not even watching it,” Dean complains, nodding at where Cas is frowning at his phone screen, “Your family whatsapp crap again?”

“No,” Cas says, “How big is 12 by 12 inches?”

“Could give you a reference point, but I don't reckon my little brother would appreciate it.” Dean grins, trying to lean over to see whatever the hell it is that Cas is doing on his phone, but the angle is awkward.

“Nice, Dean,” Sam comments from his seat, gaze fixed on the show.

“Is it bigger than the photo frame my mother bought us for Christmas?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, stretching enough to get a glimpse of his phone screen, “And please tell me we burnt that thing at stake. Wait, you getting pictures? Thought we were waiting to see the feel of the house or some crap before we started printing pictures”

“Given it's our house, I think a photo of us will be fitting within the theme.”

“You're getting pictures of us,” Dean asks, “We have pictures of us?” 

“Charlie sent them,” Cas supplies, mouth going a lot softer round the edges as he turns the screen towards him to show the picture. It’s a pretty good photo, actually, from when they last visited her in Massachusetts. She’s managed to capture one of his favourite of Cas’ smiles and Dean looks pretty happy, too. It’s a good picture. It’s _nice_ and maybe that is the kind of crap they should be doing, given they _own_ this place.

“Should get Bobby to send across the graduation ones, too,” Dean says, handing him back the phone before he gets caught up on the screen, “What the hell is this show?”

“Shush,” Cas says, pulling him into a kiss to shut him up.

It’s probably the photos that lull him into a false sense of security when he knows, really, that he and Cas have some stuff to talk about. Yesterday wasn’t the worst fight they’ve ever had, or anything close, but it probably was the first fight they’ve had about something serious since the cheating incident. They had an audience and it wasn’t exactly resolved. 

Nevertheless, Sam goes to bed first, probably because he got up, like, an hour before either him or Cas to go for a run, and Dean turns into Cas, wanting to fold into his side, or a hug, or something.

Cas sighs and somehow exudes physical distance even though he’s right fucking there. 

“You’re still pissed at me,”

“I’m not pissed at you,” Cas counters, shoulders stiff.

“Look, Cas, I explained about the whole money thing. I talked to Sam. We agreed we’re gonna talk, properly, when Sam’s back in California. Can we just be done with this bullcrap this evening? It’s been a long ass day.”

“It’s been the first day in our home,” Cas bristles. 

“Yeah, our new home, that was painted by a crazy person. Today was always gonna be a nightmare. That doesn’t mean that I’m not… I _love_ this house, Cas.”

“Have you spoken to Benny?”

“No,” Dean says, jaw set, “I don’t have a damn thing to say to Benny right now.”

“It’s not his fault,”

“Well that’s fucking _peachy_ ,” Dean says, with Cas’ legs still sprawled across his damn lap, because that’s how the argue sometimes; exchanging cutting words and barbs when they’re still freaking holding each other. “Benny can _hit on me_ in our kitchen and that’s fine, but I’m a goddamn villain for having some valid financial concerns and not communicating them to you telepathically.”

“I didn’t say it was fine,” Cas says, swinging his legs off the sofa, “Are you coming to bed?”

“Yes,” Dean says, petulantly enough that he wins an eyeroll. He can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t make him sound like a toddler by the time they’ve reached the top of the stairs - their stairs - so he settles on a “Cas,” because he doesn’t want them to go to bed in silence for the second night in a row.

Castiel’s fixed expression falters slightly and, for the first time in a long time, Dean’s got no freaking idea what his internal conflict is about. He’s pretty sure that the side Dean’s routing for wins, though, because Cas offers a small smile then leans forward to kiss him on their landing.


	4. Chapter 4

The most striking thing about getting into the impala to drop Sam off at the airport is that Benny’s car has disappeared off the driveway. He must have picked it up while they were inside debating freaking wallpaper, because none of them noticed. His best friend (Cas and Sam notwithstanding) hit on him in his fucking kitchen then snuck back, two days after the fact, to take his car. Dean doesn't know what the hell to do with that.

The second thing is that Sam is clearly working himself up to a talk. He doesn't speak for half the journey at all; spends it staring out the window and brooding like the angsty teenager he isn't anymore. They've covered a lot of ground this weekend. The wills. Dean funding college. The barest mention of John Winchester. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to have another freaking chat, right after he’s spent the whole goddamn weekend moving, but as always with Sam he doesn't always get a choice.

“Dean,” Sam says, sighing in the passenger seat, finally gearing up to whatever it is he has to stay. "I don't get your relationship with Cas.” 

“Well, that's awesome.”

“No, I mean, obviously I get that you're in love and you're good for each other, I just don't get how you work, so I over analyse and I misjudge,” Sam says, which means _this_ is supposed to be some kind of apology, even though he’s clearly terrible at it.

“Even if you thought I was about to throw Cas over and run off with Benny into the sunset, pretty sure the correct way to handle it isn't to start accusing me in front of my fiancé."

“Yeah. You're right, Dean. It's just, in my head you set the pace of your relationship.”

“What?” Dean asks, glancing at him in the mirror. “You think I’m in charge?”

“That's not what I said,” Sam says, “And obviously I was wrong, because Cas suggested you buy a house, right?”

“Dunno what your financial situation is, Sam, but we didn't pull the down payment out our asses. This has been the plan.”

“I mean, he said it was the right time .”

“Right,” Dean says, “I haven't exactly been focusing on our finances right now.”

“Because of Dad,” Sam supplies. Dean clenches his jaw and doesn’t say anything. “This is what I mean, Dean, you have a history of running away from problems and I walked into that conversation and I get that you... you were just trying to be a good friend to Benny and not rub your happiness in his face.”

“Damn right I was,” Dean says, squaring up his shoulders. “Cause, damnit Sam, I am happy.”

“I know that,” Sam says, “I know you're happy. That Cas _makes you_ happy. That you make each other happy. We just - we haven't heard anything about a wedding and -”

“ - we talked about the freaking wedding thing."

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, “We did. Look, Dean, I didn't mean to butt in. I'm sorry.”

“Good,” Dean says, pulling up at the airport parking lot, “because me and Cas, we’re solid. We’re sticking. I don’t care what the hell happens with _Benny_ , or this family, because Cas is…”

“Your next of kin,” Sam supplies, “I get it. And I’m really glad, Dean, you deserve to have him.” 

“Well,” Dean says, swallowing, “Thanks for helping out this weekend.”

“It’s a great house.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, chest tightening.

“And Cas knows you don’t regret buying it,”

“Yep,”

“Let me know how it goes with your job,” Sam says, looking at him from the front seat, puppy dog eyes in place, “Call me.”

“I’ll walk you to departures,” Dean says, taking the car out of gear and pocketing his cell phone, not quite managing to shut up the part of his head that’s still stuck on ‘I don’t get your relationship’ and ‘history of running away from problems’.

*

Cas has finished shoving pieces of kitchenware into any available cupboard by the time he gets back from the airport. The place is a still a hot mess, with more boxes of crap strewn around than it feels like they have a right to own. All the efforts they put into labelling boxes to put them in vaguely the right room got shot to hell in the final stages of the big packing-marathon (which feels like it’s been ongoing for an eternity all on it’s own), which means Dean still hasn’t located his razors and half of Cas’ books are in the bathroom. Still, they’ve achieved a lot in three solid days. They're three rooms closer to the house being decorated in a way that isn’t completely offensive and the kitchen is a hair’s breadth away from actually being functional. It’s going to be month till he knows where all their shit is, but he’s pretty sure this is _livable_. 

“Hey,” Dean say, settling against the counter where Cas is doing the dishes, “Sooner we get a dishwasher the better.” 

“That is the dream,” Cas says, gaze fixed on the dishes, “How was the drive?”

“Dunno,” Dean says, grabbing himself a beer and gesturing to see if Cas wants one. He gets a shake of head before he settles back against the counter to watch him. “Weird. Sam reminds me a lot of Dad,” Dean says, fingers clutched around his beer. “The way he can justify things if there's the right end. Like he can filter past shades of grey to get to some moral fact. It’s _okay_ to butt in about fucking Benny because he thought I was self-sabotaging, so he was doing me a favour. That’s John Winchester ditching me at Sonny’s to teach me a lesson logic, right there.”

“Your brother would never do that,”

“No,” Dean agrees, gut twisting. He hadn’t bought up freaking Sonny’s in _years_. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it now. He doesn’t know why he’s bought up any of the dumb stuff that was under the bridge with his Dad, anyway, but it keeps _coming at him_ like it suddenly matters all over again when he decided fucking years ago he was over it. He’d figured their relationship was okay enough. His Dad had gotten over his weird-ass dislike of Castiel, mostly. He’d ask about him when he called. He’d check in every so often and, yeah, often enough the conversations left him feeling a little blind sighted and shitty, but it didn’t get to him like they used to. He felt like they’d gotten to a point where there was an uneasy mutual respect going on. He felt like they were _okay_ , but then he was dead for weeks before any of them knew about it. He hadn't counted on how that would make him feel. “But it’s the same crappy ‘wanting what’s best for you’ mindset, Sam’s just less hard minded about it. He wraps it up in talks about my goddamn feelings and puppy eyes, rather than, you know, stoicism and a bad relationship with alcohol. Anyway.” 

“Dean,”

“It’s just pretty freaking ironic,” Dean carries on, picking at the label of his beer bottle, “Given Sam rebelled against the concept of Dad with everything he had, while I spent such a long time trying to be like him and never got anywhere close.” 

“I count the ways that you're dissimilar to John Winchester to be an asset.”

It's one of the first comments Cas has made about his dad not being a stellar guy since it happened, which is grounding and helpful; Cas has been pretty reserved with his opinion about him, waiting for Dean to start the conversation. Waiting to see how he was going to level it, probably, like Dean has a goddamn clue about how he feels about any of this. Shitty, definitely, but any elaboration on that is just… complicated.

And having Sam in his goddamn face about it the whole weekend didn’t exactly _help_ , even if that's probably not Sam's fault. 

“You consider most crap about me to be an asset.”

“True,”

“I was just driving back here and it hit me that Dad would be damn proud of him for the way he turned out, and he did it all by accident. He wouldn’t have _said_ it, but… he would’ve been goddamn proud. And then I thought about what he’d think about _this_.” 

“You mean us,” Cas says, voice even as he sets down the last of the washing up to meet his gaze. Dean hadn’t registered that he’d settled so close to him in the kitchen, till Cas turns to look him in the eye properly. He’s close. Close enough that he could reach out and chase away this whole shitty conversation away with a hug, but they _should_ have this talk.

Sam is right. He does run away from his goddamn problems and, okay, they have talked about this in the past eleven months since it came out of nowhere and hit him like a brick wall, but they haven’t dissected it and teased out how all his emotional baggage relates to it. Cas has been waiting for him to bring it up himself, bit by bit, which is awesome and exactly what he wanted… but, _maybe_ he could have done with a little push.

“My life _is_ us, so yeah. I… He wouldn’t’ve wanted me to fix you up as my next of kin. He would’ve tried to make me feel shitty about it, because Sam was supposed to be my responsibility and all of that, and I just… I don’t, Cas. I don’t feel anything but great about the fact that you’ve got me, whatever happens. And I just want you to know that… that I don’t give a damn what he’d have thought about it. That I wouldn’t have before and I don’t now and I was gonna invite him to our goddamn wedding and I wouldn’t have cared if he didn’t show, because _I feel really fucking good_ about us. I _hate_ that I couldn’t make him get that and I… I hate that, when we do get hitched, I’m not gonna get to send that invite, but it hasn’t changed how I feel about you one inch.”

“I know that, Dean,” Cas says, reaching out to rest his palm on his chest, “I need no assurances about how you feel about me. And I… I make no apologies for the fact that I am not your father’s number one fan, but I wanted him to come through for you, deeply, and I am unendingly sorry that that chance has been taken from you.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, shutting his jaw shut, letting Cas’ palm skate across his shoulders, settling with both his hands joined behind Dean’s neck, pulling him closer. “Guess that’s the clincher. The potential.” 

“Death robs possibility and potential,” Cas says, eyes so goddamn serious, “And I know that it’s not the same, but I am very proud of you, Dean.”

“Even if I’m a wash-up about to lose his job?”

“You know how I feel about you is independent of anything but your existence,” Cas says, “Your brother is also very proud of you.”

“Maybe,” Dean says, looking at the wall to break a little of the intensity of the moment.“I hate how fucked up things are between me and Sam. It's just the distance, but it's bullshit.”

“I should have made you think, seriously, whether you wanted to move to California before we bought this house.”

That is the last thing he's expecting to come out of his fucking fiancé’s mouth. 

Dean steps back, out of his hold, to stare at him.

“What?” 

“We should have discussed it. I should have _asked_.”

“No way, Castiel. You're not chewing me out about regret then saying you think buying this house was a mistake. No way.”

“I'm saying it should have been considered.”

“Why? Why, Cas? We've been through this. We went through it at the end of college. We've been through it when we moved apartments, both times. I _picked you_. We _picked here_ , where our life is.”

“The first time we moved our relationship was on rocky ground and wouldn't have survived a move closer to your brother and the second you felt very passionately about your job and being close to your best friend. Now you're potentially being made redundant and you haven't spoken to Benny since Friday, despite the fact that his car has been parked outside our house for most of the weekend is a serious cause of concern. Your relationship with your brother is strained, but you let me strive towards the mortgage completion and -”

“ - who knew you were the one with the commitment phobia?”

“Dean, my entire stake in this house is left to your brother; I have made my decision.”

“I didn't ask you to do that. You could've… you want to cut your family into the deal, we can change it. You could've done that from the beginning. I didn't _ask_ \- “

“ - your brother has been your life for _years_ Dean. I know how important he is to you. I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm saying that I have made you my family and priority and that comes with obligation to your family, because I'm in love with you and I value what's important to you above or else. I'm not _commitment_ phobic, I'm just concerned this decision isn't going to make you happy.”

“Where'd you think the commitment phobes get it? And this house is gonna make me totally happy.”

“It hasn't so far,”

“Goddamn it, Cas, what part of this whole thing lead you to believe that buying a freaking house was gonna be the cure all for every grievance I have in my freaking life?” 

“I don’t want you to have any grievances. I want you to have everything, Dean, and I -”

“ - I fucking _do_ ,”

“I thought you’d turned off that phrase,” Cas says, lips tilting upwards slightly.

“You,” Dean begins, before shutting his mouth, “Cas. I don’t wanna fight.” 

“Does this classify as a fight?”

“Sure as hell doesn’t classify as pre-marital harmony.”

“I don’t care that you don’t want to get married right now.”

“I _know_ that,” Dean says, “But you’re pretty damn fixated on how I feel about this house.” 

“I love you,”

“Right back at you ,” Dean sighs, “Dude, it’s been a long freaking weekend. _Please_ can we just watch a movie and be done.” 

“I’m tired,” Cas says, “I suggest we downgrade to a TV show.”

“Your pick.”

“Excellent,” Cas says, almost smiling. 

Of freaking course, Cas makes him watch another episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. 

*

Work is so bad on Tuesday he winds up camping out in the Impala in lunch to call his goddamn fiancé who, by some miracle, actually picks up the call.

“Hello, Dean.”

“I got a pack of information about taking a voluntary redundancy in my hands, along with a list of jobs that are gonna exist after the big reshuffle. How’s your Tuesday going?”

“Zachariah has hired and fired an intern, twice.”

“Wow,” Dean says, “Work sucks.”

“Does your job still exist?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “But five of my jobs exist, rather than nine. So, either way, someone’s getting screwed.”

“We should discuss this later,”

“You snowed under?”

“Yes, I - Dean, there’s a third intern and I think -”

“ - go, darlin’, I’ll see you later. Try and get off on time, you hear me?"

“I’m at work, Dean, discussing getting off seems inappropriate.”

“Hah,” Dean says, “Speaking of, we need to christen the house.” 

“Later,” 

“Mm, love you.”

“Yes,” Castiel says, “Zachariah is…”

“Go.” 

He feels slightly hollow after Cas has hung up on him, even if he told him too, but he lost the battle against Zachariah for Castiel’s attention at work a long ass time ago.

*

As usual, Castiel’s definition of getting home from work on time is not the same as Dean’s. They’ve been going through the routine of Dean getting home first for a long freaking time at this point, with Cas’ ETA slowly creeping further back the longer Zachariah has to sink his douchebag claws into his future husband, so it’s not exactly a surprise that he's late back. It gives him an opportunity to reorganise everything in the kitchen that Cas put in illogical place yesterday and read through the entire crappy pack about the reshuffle, the number of redundancies and how the whole damn thing works. He’s moved onto staring at their pretty much empty fridge to work out how he’s going to pull dinner out of his ass before Cas _finally_ walks into their brand spanking new kitchen (if he’d been thinking straight, he’d have thought about the food-thing first, but the redundancy information pack had been tugging at the back of his mind since it was delievery to his desk at half eleven, he just couldn’t face reading it at work). 

“Is there food?”

“Hi Honey, you’re home,” Dean says, rolling his eyes, “No on the food. Apparently, you have to go the store and exchange money for goods and then take them home and put them in your fridge and _then_ cook them andddd…”

“A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

“And you’re cranky.”

“Four interns, Dean. Four.” 

“Guess I’m going to buy groceries. You coming?” 

“No,”

“Well, okay then,” Dean says, shutting the fridge door a little too forcefully. “You pull up a seat, relax. I’ll go to the store.” 

“Dean, I have a report to do.”

“Freaking _Zachariah_ ,” Dean mutters, “Well, if you get a chance between your _very important_ work, feel free to read the big scary document about the rest of my goddamn life on the kitchen counter, or help me unpack the rest of our freaking boxes.”

“Dean,”

“This is dumb. I’m going out.”

“If you need me to come with you to the store, then -” 

“ - nope,” Dean interjects, “I will be just peachy.” 

“Dean,” Castiel says, a second time, “I’m sorry I’m late home.”

“Hey, at least you’re not an intern,”

“Dean,”

“It’s fine, Cas,” Dean exhales, dropping his defences, because his shitty mood on this occasion is _not_ Cas’ fault. They’re both tired and moody after a weekend of packing and unpacking and _stress_. “I just… bad day.”

“We could get take out instead,” Cas says, blue gaze intense and serious.

“Nah,” Dean says, rubbing the back of his neck, “Just putting off a problem till tomorrow and we gotta think about money again. Anyway, gives me a chance to clear my head. Think.” 

“If you’re sure,”

“Forty minutes, tops,” Dean says, leaning forwards to kiss him, briefly. 

When he gets back, Castiel has unpacked another three boxes and is frowning at his laptop with his special Zachariah-is-a-moron-face, which probably means the report was a pointless endeavour designed to piss him off after him turning down the promotion last month. He’s loosened his tie but not changed out of his work clothes, which means the guy must’ve prioritised the unpacking over getting out of his stuffy shirt and, damn, does Dean love him.

Sharing your whole life with someone is freaking wild and if it were anyone but Castiel, he’d be scared shitless. He never thought he’d even _consider_ prioritising someone over his little brother. Even thinking about thinking about doing that used to make him feel like he was violating a key part of his personality, but then there was Castiel. Then there were shared rushed meals after classes and Cas opening up, and Dean letting him in layer by layer until suddenly he was the only goddamn thing that made sense. There were the crappy one night stands with other people that made him feel hollow and kind of worthless juxtaposed with Castiel making him pizza and smiling at him as he quoted his way through the entirety of the star wars films. Graduating together. Screwing around on their jointly purchased sofa. Dual contents insurance policies and all that mundane crap which is somehow more exciting that any damn thing he could do with anyone else. They have a _mortgage_ , now.

Castiel looks up from his laptop and catches him staring. 

“Hello Dean,” Cas says, shutting the laptop with a click to help him with the groceries, “How was your day?”

“Pretty sure we already did this bit,”

“I believe this is called a ‘do-over’.” Cas says, air quotes and all, which tugs at some residual happiness from some other day where everything was slightly less crappy out of Dean’s gut. “It’s getting better,” Dean answers, taking the milk out of his hands to kiss him properly in their brand new kitchen which they _own_ , together. 

“Not that this isn’t lovely,” Cas says, pulling away just slightly, “But I am very hungry.” 

“Instant noodles and beer,” Dean says, “We can relive our student days, less the casual sex and the studying. I am way too fucking beat to cook real food.”

“Yes,” Cas agrees, “I’ll cook tomorrow evening.”

“Deal,”

“I read your information pack. The redundancy payout seems very fair.”

“Man, we can definitely raincheck on that,” Dean says, breaking physical contact with Castiel to grab the two crappy instant noodles out of the grocery bag. Cas’ lips thin slightly. “What?”

“We do need to discuss this,” 

“Ain’t saying we don’t discuss it. I’m saying not _this_ evening, when I’ve got a stockpile of crap coming at me from all angles.”

“But you _will_ think about what you want.”

“Rain-freaking-check.” 

“Okay, Dean,”

“What the hell has got the stick up your ass anyway, dude?” Dean asks, opening both packs, irritation levels rising again, “Cause it sure as shit feels like everything I’ve said this past week has been wrong, somehow, and the last thing I need is you riding my ass everytime I open my mouth.”

“Apologise that I’m being an inconvenience to you,” Castiel says, voice icy.

“Cut the crap and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Rain-freaking-check,” Castiel parrots back at him, “I’m going to finish my report.”

“Fine. Stalemate,” Dean calls out to his retreating back, “I guess we’re _rainchecking_ on christening the house, too, huh?”

He doesn’t get a response.

“He’s your ramen,” Dean says, slumping down on the sofa next to him a few minutes later.

“Thank you.”

“M’sorry for whatever I did to upset you,” Dean says, after a few minutes of staring at his goddamn noodles, with the shitty feeling of inadequacy sinking into his bones. He knows that’s not what Cas _wants_ him to feel and he’s pretty damn sure that it’s unnecessary, too, but that doesn’t make it easier to shut down the feeling. Freaking _John Winchester_ in his head. Sam declaring that he runs away from his problems. The thought of fighting to the death for his job against all his goddamn colleagues. He can’t stand the thought of letting Cas down, somehow, on top of all of that. 

“Dean, you haven't done anything.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, “Just… Sam’s not wrong about me, being kind of caught up in it all, and I… I _do_ run away from crap and I’ve nearly screwed us so many times.”

“You understand that you're my favourite person in existence,” Cas says, serious and wonderful; staring him straight in the face with a fork poised over his stupid instant noodles. “You understand that there's nothing you could do or say that would shake how I feel about you. That there's no flaw of yours that someone could point out or could reveal itself that would shift my opinion of you one inch.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, breaking his gaze to look his dumb noodles, face flushing slightly, “Yeah, I know that.”

“ And there's no grief that you could suffer that I don't want to be a part of. Dean, your father died. Whatever feelings you have about that are valid and I only wish I could do more to help.”

“Man I wouldn't be vertical if you weren't… You couldn't do more. You've done everything. I just thought this part would be over by now.”

Cas shuts his laptop and sets it on the floor, before looking at him very seriously and declaring “l think we should cuddle”.

He'd mock him for it, but that's suddenly every goddamn thing he wants. He wants a fucking cuddle, however pathetic that makes him.

“Your other life partner wants his report tomorrow,”

“Fuck Zachariah,” Cas declares, watching him carefully and, dammit, Dean goes to him and tucks himself under his arm on the sofa till he's inhaling the fabric softener they bought from their joint bank account.

“How are you, Dean?”

He doesn't want to talk about that.

“Rain check,” Dean mutters, capturing one of Cas’ hands and running his fingertips over the familiar shape of his knuckles, then turning them over to trace the palms. Cas has nice hands. He doesn't know when he first noticed that, but he's pretty sure it was a long time before they got their act together. “Put your dumb show on if you want,” Dean says, picking up his fork.

“I’m very happy, Dean,” Cas says, low and deep, and that’s _something_. That’s a helluva something. If Cas, regardless of whatever it is that’s in his head right now, is really happy then he’s doing something right.

“Good,” Dean says, shutting his eyes to block out the sound of the TV and concentrate on not losing his shit.

*

“Dude, this show is _insane._ ”

Cas isn't listening to him, but they've been together for nearly five years, so that's not exactly new: he's pretty damn used to having half of Cas’ attention as he scrolls through his work emails or perpetually frowns at his family WhatsApp (Gabriel apparently sends a lot of photos, which every single other member of the group steadfastly ignores). He gets enough of Cas’ concentrated attention the rest of the time, anyway, without needing it on a random Friday evening after food and before they’ve actually committed to an evening activity and before they’ve reinstated date-night after a temporary moving-related suspension. 

He’s feeling better. Largely because it’s _finally_ the goddamn weekend (it doesn’t matter that he only worked Tuesday-Friday this week, it still felt like a lifetime sentence) and they mutually and wordlessly agreed to ignore the myriad of crap they needed to do around the house until Saturday morning. Given the weeks before they moved were all spent frantically packing, cleaning their damn apartment until their asshole landlord couldn’t con them out of their deposit and stress buying furniture, they haven’t actually had a _break_ for a long time. 

“This guy makes a totally bangable chick,” Cas looks up from his family whatsapp to frown at him in one of those loving disapproval looks that Dean freaking adores so much that sometimes he says dumb crap just to win that exact crease of the eyebrow. “What? Don't go branding me with sexism, cause he made a totally bangable dude, too. This is freaking wizardry.”

“You’re watching Ru Paul drag race and your comment is you'd fuck him as a man and a woman.”

“Seriously, this is totally sexually confusing. I got no idea what I want, ‘cept you. Obviously. Come on, you gotta have an opinion; who'd you rather sleep with?”

“This is not the point of this show,” Cas says, “Out of drag.” 

“Knew it,” Dean says, “He's cute. Not as cute as you. Reckon you can make a totally smoking chick too, but you'd have to lose the peach fuzz and I'd totally miss it. Plus, I still don’t have a freaking _clue_ where the razors are in this joint.”

“Our charming three bed house is not a ‘joint’, Dean.”

“Whatever you say, Sweetheart,” Dean says, turning away from the screen to quirk an eyebrow up at him, “Who do you reckon would make a better drag queen?”

“You,” Cas says, without pause. Dean sends him a look. “Hear this without the filter of your attachment to your masculinity: your features are beautiful.” 

“You've got those eyes, though.”

“You're _pretty_.”

“You're pretty,” Dean bats back, swotting his knee. 

“If you're not going to take this seriously -”

“ - oh this is serious business, Cas. Clearly this has to go to an independent jury.”

“Dean,” Cas says, voice aiming at stern, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. 

“Charlie probably has better things to do that judge who would be more attractive in drag,”

“Well she's already text back, so clearly she doesn't,” Dean says, pulling Cas into his lap, “She says she needs to remember what we look like,”

“I feel as though we have been here before.”

“Smile,” Dean says, grinning into the camera before he hits _send_ and takes the proximity opportunity to kiss his fiance, tilting them till their not-quite horizontal on their new sofa.

“Why are you watching this?” Cas asks, with his thumb running over Dean’s cheekbones, his cell phone and his family whatsapp abandoned somewhere near their feat. His voice is low and warm, like there’s some kind of precious gesture locked up in the fact that Dean put the damn thing on the tv. It’s that voice that’s vulnerable enough that Dean doesn’t want anyone else to ever hear it.

“Figured that you like it and you're marrying me some day, so clearly you have outstanding taste, so maybe I'd give it another shot.”

“You’re in a very good mood,” Cas says, pausing to kiss him with freaking reverence, “I like it a great deal.”

“Yeah?” Dean exhales, hands settling on his hips, letting Cas press their foreheads together, noses bumping. 

“Your joy is exquisite,” 

“Your _ass_ is exquisite,”

“And you’re an incorrigible asshole,” Cas smiles, beams, close and familiar. He never realised how goddamn amazing it would be to know Cas’ skin by heart. To be as comfortable untucking Cas shirt as he would his own, after years of casual physical touch, and un-casual touch and learning each other. “Let me say sentimental things to you, Dean Winchester.”

“Only on a two to one dirty to sentimental ratio.” 

“Interesting offer,” Cas says, “I propose a trade agreement. Two sentimental offerings for your requests.”

“You’re a dork,” 

“From you, I’ll take that as sentiment.” 

“Hey, you know I can do better than that, hotstuff.”

“True,” Cas says, sitting up and shifting away from him to grab the TV remote and hit the off switch. “It was distracting me,” Cas adds, in response to Dean’s look.

“So we’ve been doing this so freaking long the _TV_ is enough to distract you? Might us well check you into the goddamn care home now, Cas. We aint the hot young couple anymore. We’re officially passed it.”

“Dean, we are twenty six.”

“Uhuh, and when we were twenty one you sure as hell didn’t care about the goddamn TV being on.”

“They were _lip syncing_ , Dean.” 

“Doctor Sexy Marathon, December 2015.”

“ _Lip syncing_.” 

“Star wars, Cas, at least four frigging times.”

“Anything to make the incessant rewatching more interesting.”

“Take that back,” Dean says, chest warm and loose and, damnit, why is it so freaking _easy_ to fall into this rhythm with Cas.

“No,” Cas says, leaning back into him with a smile, “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey yourself,” Dean throws back before Cas cuts him off with another kiss. A serious one, this time, which cuts across their conversation and right into his chest. Goddamnit. _Cas_.

They’re about half a minute from tipping over into the good stuff when the doorbell rings.

“Don’t answer it,” Cas says, voice low and eyes dark.

“Could be our new neighbours,” Dean says, pausing in reaching for his shirt to get caught up in Cas’ gaze instead.

“Yes,” Cas acknowledges, “They might want to introduce themselves and engage in small talk. On balance, I would rather reacquaint myself with your dick.”

“Like you’ve had a chance to forget,” Dean says, “But, I hear you.”

Someone knocks on the door this time, loudly. 

Dean grabs his shirt and pulls it over his head.

“Dean,”

“Come on,” Dean says, “They ain’t stopping.”

“They will eventually,”

“It’s distracting,” Dean says, which wins him the mother of all eyerolls and an affectionate smile.

He’s not expecting _Benny_ to be at his goddamn door with a split lip, a black eye and a smile angled by alcohol (and a helluva lot of it at that). 

“Sorry for disturbing you, chief,” Benny smiles, then throws up on his front porch. 


	5. Chapter 5

Benny’s vomit smells like whiskey and the kind of hangover he hasn’t had since he finished college and it’s all over his front porch.

“Cas,” Dean calls back into the house. Benny’s leaning against the doorframe to throw up and the only thing he’s got right now is _rage_. It’s not even about the fact that Benny would try fuck up their friendship with the shit he pulled, but it’s the lack of respect for Castiel that’s been driving him crazy. Maybe they never got along, not really, but Dean thought… he was pretty damn sure that Benny at least _respected_ him and their relationship. He was expecting him to go _silent_ until he worked out the best way to apologise, but he’s suddenly there. “Cas.”

“Dean,” Cas returns, behind him in the doorway, shirt buttoned up wrong with his hair every which way.

“Huh,” Benny says, “Guess I really am disturbin’ you two lovebirds.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, Benny?” Dean asks, teeth gritted, arm going out on automatic as Benny sways a little. He smiles. His teeth are bloody.

“Benny, come inside,” Cas says, all business and hard angles.

“What?” Dean asks, “Inside?”

“He’s hurt.”

“He’s _fucked_ ,” 

“Do you want him to continue throwing up on our front porch?”

“The porch is feeling like a helluva better option than _inside_.”

“Dean, the _neighbours_.”

“Dude, come on,” Dean says, “Don’t say that to me like we’ve become _’the neighbours’_ people.”

“We own this house. We have committed to these neighbours for a long time.”

“But,”

“Dean,” Cas says, voice sharp and, okay. Fine. 

“Okay then,” Dean says, squaring his jaw and digging a hang under under Benny’s armpit to half drag him over the porch, “But he aint going anywhere fucking _near_ my new sofa.”

“Reasonable,” Cas says, “The kitchen will be fine.”

“And if he throws up again?”

“We could get him a bucket.”

“Do we _have_ a bucket?” 

“No,”

“Awesome,” Dean exhales, “You wanna start talking, asshole?” 

“You talkin’ to me, brother?”

“You’ve got some fucking _nerve_ showing up here after the crap you pulled.” 

“Who hit you?” Castiel asks, twisting one of their kitchen chairs so Dean can steer him into it.

“The old man,” Benny says, smiling again. 

“That asshat?” Dean demands, as Cas reappears next to his arm with Dean’s favourite saucepan. “What?”

“Instead of a bucket.”

“Does it have to be _this_ saucepan?” 

“Do you have some emotional attachment to this particular saucepan?”

“Didn’t your mom give us some crappy fruit bowl for Christmas?”

“We threw it out.”

“I’m all good, chief.” 

“Take the saucepan and talk fast,” Dean says, “Before Jiminy cricket here remembers he hates your ass. Your old man. I thought you were done with him.” 

“He took Andrea,”

“You’re _married_ Benny. You’ve got a kid.” 

“Andrea,” Benny says, “She was beautiful. She was -”

“- Oh she was a peach,” Dean snaps, “Right until she screwed you. She’s _history_. Think of Elizabeth.”

“She’s better without me, chief.”

“Don’t make me attempted to agreed with you, Lafitte.” 

“Dean,” Cas warns.

“She needs her father.” 

“Don’t matter, Dean,” Benny says, “I’m out. Misses is saying I ain’t a suitable father figure and I aint inclined to disagree with her.” 

Dean doesn’t have a damn thing he can think of to say to that. He didn’t have a damn clue that things were going south. Honestly, he hadn’t been paying a blind bit of attention. All of it happened in the midst of everything else in the past year… he’s only ever met Elizabeth, Lizzie, once. Last he checked, his best friend was happily married and doing a little better.

The drinking too much isn’t a new thing, but it was… it was in control. It was in control in the same way that Dean's crap has always been in control.

“You need to put ice on your lip,” Castiel says, crossing the kitchen to the freezer.

“How much have you drunk, Benny?”

“Oh, I think I’ll just have to show you.”

“I’m serious, Benny. When did you start drinking?”

“That depends. What day are you askin’ about?”

“When the hell did it get this bad?” 

“Truth is, Dean, I don’t belong. And after a while… that starts to weigh on you.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, right behind him with a bag of frozen peas, nodding towards the longue.

“Hold that to your lip,” Dean snaps, before following Cas’ nod into the next room and whirling around to face him.

“He needs to stay here and sleep this off.”

“What?”

“Dean, now is not the time to dig into his issues. You can interrogate him or give him ultimatums tomorrow.” 

“Why the hell is he staying _here_? You don’t even freakin’ like Benny, Cas. You… you don’t get along. He tried to… last weekend, Cas.”

“I am not excusing or condoning his behaviour,” Castiel says, “And I do not _dislike_ Benny.”

“You’re sure as hell not in his fan club.”

“No,” Castiel agrees, “Dean, one of the first things I ever really knew about you was that your a loyal to a fault. I know you and I _know_ that you will regret this if you don’t do everything in your power to _help_. Is it not your responsibility to help? No. You’re profoundly irritated about his behaviour last weekend and the fact that there is currently bodily fluids on our doorstep, yes, but I believe you will be more irritated at yourself if you do nothing.”

“One night,” Dean hisses, “ _One_. And if he shows up here again fucked up and talking about bailing on his kid, I’m gonna punch him. And I’m not cleaning up the goddamn vomit. _And_ him showing up is not stopping us from having sex tonight.”

Cas tilts his head at him.

“You’re still in the mood?”

“Dude, we haven’t found time to screw in like two and a half weeks. We’re getting down tonight. And, another thing, we’re reinstating date night. Tomorrow,” Dean says, petulant and very aware that none of this is _Cas’_ fault, and the guy probably has a point, but too wound up to talk himself down. Cas’ eyes crinkle in something a little affection before his expression gives way to a frown. 

“Dean,” Cas says, very seriously, “Do we own some kind of mop?” 

It’s another twenty five minutes before Dean manages to navigate a drunk as hell Benny up the stairs and into the spare room. They haven’t changed the sheets since Sam left, but Dean isn’t inclined to give a fuck about that right now. He’s got no freaking clue where the spare sheets are, anyway. Benny threw up on his dumb porch. Cas is currently trying to find some kind of cleaning device to deal with _that_ and Dean’s pretty sure he pulled something in his back from carrying them up the stairs. He can buck up and deal with the goddamn sheets.

Right now, his priority is not letting Benny ruin his damn evening. He’s gonna get it on with his six foot of sexy as hell fiancée and they’re going to freaking cuddle and _not argue_ and it’s going to be the epitome of the hallmark expectation that Cas apparently had about the first few weeks of home ownership. 

“You’re so _hot_ ,” Dean exhales, as Cas re-enters their bedroom five minutes after Dean’s thrown himself on top of the sheets, to wait for Cas to be done with clean-up. Cas’ gaze settles on _Dean_ and it takes him a beat too long to reply for it to be good news for Dean’s sex drive.

“I’ve just cleaned vomit out of your favourite saucepan,” Cas says, “And it turns out we do own a bucket.”

“ _Damnit Benny_ ,” Dean mutters, hitting his elbow against the bed-frame mid gesture of frustration. Cas smiles at him, all fond and fucking wonderful, before sitting on the edge of Dean’s side of the bed. “I _really_ thought this would be a good Friday night.”

“Date night tomorrow.” 

“Hells fucking yeah,” Dean says, “I got big plans for you, tough guy.” 

“Will they involve pizza and oral sex?” Cas asks and, fuck, is Cas perfect. Perfect down to his atoms and, okay, Dean can do better than he’s been doing these past few weeks. He can try _harder_ to work out whatever the he hell he did that made Cas get stuck in his own head and frustrated, and he can prove to him that buying this house is absolutely _not_ something he’s planning on regretting any time soon. He’s in this all the way. He’s been in this for years. 

“Hey, _spoilers_ , dude, you’ll kill the romance.”

“There’s too much romance in you for me to exterminate it all, Dean Winchester,” Cas says, standing up, “I need to shower and to concentrate on not thinking about vomit.” 

“I’ll check on Benny,” Dean says, grimacing and standing up, too.

He’s passed out cold on top of the bedsheets, now, and it looks a lot like he’s stopped chucking up his guts. Cas has swapped out the saucepan for the bucket, but it’s probably too late to save it. Dean grunts an insult at him to vent a little of his frustration, but grabs him a glass of water and some painkillers anyway and sets them down on the bedside table. Unconscious, he looks a lot _smaller_ than the burly, always-smirking tough-guy routine Benny spends a lot of time projecting. 

And, damnit, Dean _gets it_ , because the whole freaking reason he and Benny bonded in the first place is that they had similar sob stories waiting to swallow them up. It’s just that Dean had _Castiel_ , and Sam, and Bobby, and that always worked out enough to keep him keeping on rather than letting it drown him. 

Benny has a lot of damn people worth not giving up treading water for, too. 

Cas gets out of the shower just after Dean’s joined him in the bathroom so he can brush his teeth. Dean’s already stripped down to his boxers and pulled out a old t-shirt to sleep in, given apparently they’ve got _guests_ , but Cas still decides to crowd up against him at the sink, still half wet.

“Dude,” Dean complains, as Cas wraps his arms around Dean’s middle and hugs him. 

“I love you,”

“Back at you, you freaking weirdo,” Dean says, setting his toothpaste down and relaxing into Cas’ touch. “I am gonna marry you one day. You know that, right?” 

“Yes,” Cas says, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck before he pulls back. “It has been a very long week.”

“You wanna go to bed and _cuddle_ , you just have to say so.”

“I do,” Cas says, completely shamelessly, “I very much want to take you to bed and cuddle you until I forget this week happened.”

“Who says you're taking me to bed?” Dean asks, watching as Cas cleans his teeth. “What if I wanna drag your ass to cuddle freaking town myself?”

“And I am the ‘weirdo’,” Cas smiles, setting down his toothbrush.

“I'll go warm up the joint,” Dean says, before heading back to their bedroom. He'd put his phone on charge before and he checks it again out of habit, even though he’s not expecting to hear from anyone (Sam has been conspicuously quiet since he got back to Stanford) . It's not even that _late_ it just feels late, when he's been living out of boxes and every time he shuts his goddamn eyes he starts thinking about what happens if he loses his job.

Cas settles next to him after a few moments and pulls Dean close to him. “I am sorry your friend is suffering.”

“Yeah, well, I'm sorry you mopped his suffering off our damn porch,” Dean throws back, because he’s not all that sure he’s in the mood to talk about Benny right now. Still, he’ll indulge Cas in most things, these days.

“How are you feeling?”

“Uh”, Dean begins, shutting his eyes and letting Cas run his fingers through his hair. “First off, I'm feeling like I should've cleaned that up myself, instead of letting you do it. Most of second and third place is feeling as grateful as fuck that I've got you around. Then I - guilt, anger, betrayal.The regular trio.”

“Ah, those bastards.”

“But, the overall aftertaste of this emotional shitstorm is that I cannot believe that we've owned a house for two freaking minutes and you pulled the _what will the neighbours think_ card. I'm gonna have to disown you and that's a damn shame, cause you know I can't afford this place alone, especially if I lose my damn job.” 

“Hmm,” Cas says, all gravely and _awesome_ , “You really should have considered that possibility before we filled in all that paperwork. Disowning me will be very tiresome.”

Dean snorts at that and twists so that he can kiss him. 

Cas meets him in it and it’s the kind of lazy going-nowhere making out that he’s only really done with Cas, with the sheets they picked out purchased together twisted around them in a bedroom that they freaking _own_. They built up this space. Assembled the bed out of a flatpack. Debated the mattress for way too goddamn long ( _”But -- memory foam, Cas_!”). Saved up. Planned.

He winds up rolling into Cas’ space, Cas’ hands framing his face as he offers him that smile Dean’s only ever seen directed at him. Small, but smacking of affection, and then their _going-nowhere_ necking seems like maybe it should go somewhere, because Dean has so many fucking feelings and no idea where to put them.

“You, uh,” Dean says, drinking in his expression, “Still thinkin’ about vomit?”

“You’ll have to be quiet,” Cas says, pressing a finger to his lips, which is a _good_ answer for the salvation of Dean’s Friday night. Not that it’s been a total write off. Not really. He just feels like he's in a funk that the closeness of sex might shake, if Cas is down. 

“Benny’s the kind of passed out the end of the world won’t wake,”

“No, Dean,” Cas says, mock intently, “ _What will the neighbours think?”_

*

He wakes up on the other side of the bed to Cas, with one hand splayed out across Cas’s chest, half-aware that Cas definitely got up a couple of times in the night to check that Benny hadn’t choked on his own vomit, and that it’s definitely Dean’s turn to deal with it. It was probably Dean’s turn to deal with it the whole time, given that Benny is _Dean’s_ friend in the first instance, but Cas is kick-ass like that.

“Dean,” Cas says, voice rough with sleep, without opening his eyes, “Why are you getting up? It’s _Saturday_.”

“Benny,” Dean says, pulling on a sweatshirt and some socks, because their kitchen floor is freaking cold underfoot and there’s no way he’s surviving this morning without coffee. 

“No,” Cas grumbles, “ _Stay_.”

“How’s about I come back in five minutes with coffee, Sunshine?”

“Fine,” Cas concedes, splaying out to take up Dean’s side of the bed, too.

Benny is still asleep and doesn’t look to have thrown up again. He looks like pure shit, but alive. His old man must have got a couple of hits in, because in the light of the morning it’s not just the bloody lip. A black eye has bloomed overnight and Dean’s pretty sure it’s swollen. 

He’s drank the water, which is something at least.

They left the kitchen in a bit of a mess (more of a mess than the fact that they haven’t unpacked and the whole house is chaos) last night, so he figures he'll tidy up a little while the coffees brewing. That and call Bobby, given Dean missed their usual Thursday night unwritten standing appointment because he was in a prissy mood and was trying to find his crap in the midst of all their boxes.

“How’s the new house, kid?” Bobby asks, as he gets out two mugs, hesitates, then pulls out a third. Last time he was that hungover, the coffee Cas bought him was a lifesaver. If he’s pulling this being there crap for Benny against his better judgment, then he might as well go for broke.

“Boxed up, mostly. We got the worst of the technicolour painted over.”

“Hmhmm. It calmed down there, any?”

“You been talking to Sam?” Dean asks, because _Damnit Sam_. Of course they've been talking about him. Goddamn typical.

“Yep. He said you two were buttin’ heads again,” Bobby continues, as Dean grabs a few slices of bread and works out what he can unplug to plug in the toaster, because they really haven’t worked out prime-placements for all their kitchen stuff yet. It's all where it was unpacked onto the kitchen counters.

“You mean me and Sam are buttin’ heads, or me and Cas?”

“You and Sam, y’idjit.”

“We talked it out, Bobby, all good. Now I’ve got Benny in my goddamn spare room, but that’s a whatever. Just figured I’d check in,” Dean continues, pausing and getting a couple more slices of bread for Benny.

“Uhuh,” Bobby says, “Well you just tell me when you’re ready for your housewarming gift?” 

“I get a housewarming gift? I didn’t know that was a thing,” Dean says, “Awesome. Whatcha got us, Bobby?”

“Guess there’s no point persuading you these things should be a surprise.”

“Dangerous move, Bobby, we’re buying a lot of crap to fill up the place at the moment.”

“Well, your boy helped me pick it out.”

“You know,” Dean says, glancing round the kitchen for the tray they definitely used to own, because there’s no way he can carry three cups of coffee and three rounds of toast up the stairs in one trip. It’s surprisingly easy to find given Dean’s still got no idea where his good razor ir. “Cas is a grown ass man.”

Bobby snorts.

“You’re forgetting I’ve seen him before he’s got caffeine in his system.”

“Well you’re not wrong, Bobby. Speaking of, the princess is waiting for his coffee right now.”

“Don’t be a stranger, boy.”

“Just one more thing,” Dean says, as he pours the cups of coffee, “Are you and Ellen shaking up?”

“What?”

“Sam figures you two are a, you know, thing. Romantically. Sexually. Whatever.”

“And Sam figured he’d gossip with you rather than ask?”

“Yep,” Dean agrees, putting another two slices of toast in the toaster, “Cas thought so too. Said you looked pretty cosy at the, uh, at the funeral.”

“Well,” 

“Well?”

“He aint wrong.”

Well, that _is_ news. He hasn’t got a damn clue what to do about that. 

“What the hell, Bobby? You don’t just… just _date_ Ellen and not tell anyone.”

“Figured you two idjits would work it out.”

“Well,” Dean says, “Okay then. You go, tiger. Go get em.”

“Mmhm. You want me to pass that message on to Ellen? In fact, boy, how about a pass the phone on right now -?”

“ - Sorry Bobby, really gotta head. Duty calls etc,” Dean says, half grinning as he hangs up the phone and starts ladening up it his tray. Bobby and _Ellen_ is a strange concept, but probably a good one. They tag teamed him to put him through college. They’re both experts at gruff, tough love, it’s just that Ellen’s always been more motherly about it. It’s almost definitely a good thing, if he could get the image of them freaking kissing out of his head. 

He delivers Benny his coffee and toast before heading back to Cas. Both will probably be cold by the time he surfaces, but Dean at least feels like he did his part.

“That was more than five minutes,” Cas comments, without opening his eyes.

“Maybe, but - I bought breakfast, and coffee. Benny’s alive. Bobby is shacked up with Ellen. Date night this evening. DIY all day. Budge up, man, I want my side of the bed back.”

Cas peals his eyes open and sits up. After a little navigating around the tray and the other half of the bed, takes his coffee, hands cupped around the cup as he yawns, widely. Dean sits down next to him and thumbs out a text to Sam about Bobby.

“You were up a couple of times last night,” Dean says, “You worrying about something? Money?”

“I am not worried about money,” Cas says, “The light is different here.”

“The light? What are you, the princess and the pea?”

“If you mean _is your sleep that easily disrupted_ , then yes,” Cas says, the classic gruff of his morning voice as glorious as ever. Dean takes a sip of his coffee and stretches out his feet. He’s _happy_. He really is, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t the worry of the rest of it gnawing at the back of his head.

“So that's all that's keeping you up? New place?”

“Yes,” Cas affirms, a little too impassioned, as he frowns into his coffee. 

“Cause I gotta say, _I'm_ worried about money. That whole redundancy fact sheet scared the crap out of me.”

“I thought the redundancy payout offered was fair.”

“Right,” Dean says, “Okay, it's _fair_ but then you haven't got a damn job. When did you read it, anyway?”

“Wednesday evening,” Cas says, “You were cleaning your car.”

“Huh,” Dean says, picking at a spare thread on the sheets, gaze focused in on his coffee. “You didn't seem all that interested.”

“Dean,” Cas says, mouth drawn into a frown, “You have persistently avoided all of my attempts for us to discuss it. It’s our _life_. Of course I am ‘interested’.”

That’s logical. It’s more than logical. It just didn’t _seem_ like Cas really wanted to get stuck into it the few times it’s been mentioned this week. He’s been so damn caught up in work and whatever it is that’s going on in his head that he doesn’t feel like sharing, yet.

“Yeah. Well. Can't believe Bobby and Ellen are in a freaking relationship.”

“We did say we'd discuss this in full after your brother left,” Cas says, taking a slice of toast. “You cannot just declare that you're worried about money then refuse to discuss our options.”

“Watch me,” Dean says, pulling the covers over his legs, “Benny's gonna wake up at some point. That's gotta be the most pressing freaking issue.”

“Okay,” Cas says, “What do you want to do about Benny?”

“Well first off, I'm gonna start putting up some goddamn shelves, loudly, in the other spare room. Serve him right for hitting on me then throwing up in my favourite saucepan. M’ thinking I need to call the misses. See if we can tag team him into getting some help. Work out how bad it is. Shelves, first.”

“Shelves were on the agenda for today,” Cas acknowledges, setting down his mostly drained coffee on their bedside table and curving round to face him. “I was going to focus on organising the kitchen.”

“Dude, you never use the kitchen. I'll sort the kitchen. You do your endless supplies of books and if you could work out where the hell my good razor is, that would be sweet.”

“Are we doing anymore painting today?” “Nah,” Dean says, “That can wait. I just wanna know where crap is. Then - date night. Dinner?”

“It's a Saturday.”

“I'll reserve a table some place,” Dean says, “You want pizza, right?”

“Yes,” Cas says, “I’m not sure I fulfilled my cuddle quota last night.”

“Okay then,” Dean says, moving the breakfast tray onto the floor, “Get over here.” 

Cas offers him a brief, vulnerable smile before he shifts and curls himself under the expanse of Dean’s arm, pausing to run a thumb over the rough of Dean’s cheek before he sighs. “You okay, Cas?” Dean exhales, but he doesn’t get an answer. Cas just closes his eyes and burrows closer.

Benny wakes up and leaves during Dean’s trip to the hardware store to pick up the right size wall brackets (as it turns out, he shouldn’t have tasked Sam with picking up the right crap last weekend; it figures his little brother is as clueless about how to put up a damn shelf as _Cas_ is). Cas is tight lipped about how _that_ conversation went down, he just says that they talked, that Benny is sorry, and that he appreciates their hospitality. 

Dean doesn’t have the brain space to press the issues, so he just grunts, throws away his favourite saucepan and gets to work. 

*

Considering how crappy this whole week has been, he’s feeling pretty okay by the time he’s showered and changed into something he hasn’t been putting shelves up in all day, that might classify as _nice_ but fails to really commit to it. He pauses as he catches himself in the mirror because, right, he still hasn’t found his goddamn razor. He wound up buying a couple of cheap ass disposable ones because it was driving him crazy, but… what the hell. It’s the weekend. He’s got no reason to butcher his damn face for no reason. Cas sure as hell hasn’t bothered since they moved in, which Dean can’t deny that he’s kind of into. 

Stubble it is. 

When he comes downstairs, Cas is sat at their newly cleared kitchen table, hunched over his laptop already in his trench coat. He’d been the one to cajole Dean into getting ready in the first place, so he’d been expecting him to be chewing at the bit ready to go. Not clearly in the middle of something.

“Date night, Cas,” Dean says, pausing to rest a hand on his shoulders and scan his goddamn laptop to see what the hell Zachariah has him doing now, only to find that Cas is squinting at their goddamn online banking instead.

“Two minutes, Dean,” Cas says, pausing to send him an apologetic look.

“We're in our overdraft?”

“Our first mortgage payment came out of the incorrect bank account,” Cas says, “I called them and they've advised they won't charge us if we resolve it by 7pm, so I just need to… The money is in our savings account. I just need to _move it_.”

“Okay,” Dean shrugs, pulling up a seat next to him and scating over one of the bank statements Cas has open. “Thought all the bills were set up to come out around your payday.”

“The way the interest is added onto the mortgage meant it was more beneficial to take it now.”

“Huh,” Dean says, frowning, because that kind of rings a bell, now Cas has said it. It all _makes_ sense, he just can’t really remember them setting that up. Cas must have done it on the back of their conversation with the bank which isn’t a _problem_ it’s just… he didn’t know. “Is that - since when was the money for Sam coming out of our joint account?” Cas turns to look at him, eyes large, owlish, in a way that hollows him out slightly because… Because how _did_ that happen? “Cas, I’m not pissed about it. I’m not - not about to start another argument about money, I just didn’t know.”

“You,” Cas begins, then shuts the laptop with a click, “I’ve transferred the money now. Let’s talk about it in the car, or we’ll be late for our reservation.” 

“Okaay,” Dean says, drawing the word out as he grabs the keys to the impala and his wallet.

“You used all _your_ savings to pay for your father’s funeral,” Cas says, once Dean’s pulled out from the driveway and hit the main road back vaguely back into town. It’s really _not_ where Dean thought he was going with this.

“Yeah,” Dean says, throat dry, “I know that.”

“And you wanted to send Sam more money because his rent increased, but after you paid your portion of the bills and your student loan repayments and the regular amount into our savings there’s was a deficit and - you were very upset, Dean, and you know I’ve considered our finances being separated in any fashion to be ridiculous for a long time, especially when we were saving for our _house_.”

“So you just _took_ over?”

“No, Dean,” Cas says, imploringly, “I _asked_ you if I could adjust the system and you told me to do whatever I wanted, because you ‘couldn’t deal with it right now’. Before you insist on being pig-headed about what money counts as _mine_ , please know that I asked you about all of it, and that I have nothing that I don’t consider to be equally yours.”

“Cas,” Dean says, throat a little rough, “What do you mean by _all of it_?”

Cas’ mouth pulls into a frown. Dean’s so enthralled in it that he has to drag his gaze back to the road. He shifts his grip on the steering wheel and swallows. 

“Both of our wages are paid into our joint account,” Cas says, voice very _factual_ and lacking any of the gritty, emotional stuff. “All of our regular expenditure is paid out of that account and - it’s not of import, Dean, the take away point is that we don’t have separate bank accounts anymore. If that _truly_ bothers you, then I can -”

“- Cas,” Dean interjects, “You’re my freaking next of kin. You’re right, okay. We _don’t_ have individual finances. I get it. I just - I didn’t know I was that out of the game.” 

“You were grieving.”

“I haven't looked at my online bank account for nearly a year,” Dean says, “Holy _crap_ , Cas. I don't-- that's not how I work. I had to get on top of this stuff when I was seventeen.”

Cas hand lands on his knee, gentle, his thumb circling the bone. 

“Dean, you would have done it if you _had_ to, but you didn't. You knew that I could pick up your slack until you were ready,” Cas says, voice still coaxing, soft. The kind of voice that Cas has only ever used to talk him down from some stubborn, crappy belief about himself, or their relationship. He’d never _heard_ Cas talk like that till long after they were together.

“I- I don't wanna be relying on you. Not like that, Cas, obviously I _rely_ on you. I mean I - I don't want to be _work_. Be depending on you on a way that costs you. That’s not what I want.”

“It meant a great deal to me that you entrusted me to look after you,” Cas says, poised, “I don’t want you to apologise for it. I’m not suggesting that this is how it should be _forever_ , but you needed me and I - I wouldn’t have agreed to marry you if I wasn’t prepared to take over our fucking online banking for a few months after your world inverted. Please don’t -”

“- Cas,” Dean interjects, heart racing, “ _Cas_ , I’m - thank you.”

“That is okay,” Cas says, curt, “Dean.”

“Look, if you don’t want me to apologise for that -”

“ - I don’t,”

“Okay,” Dean swallows, adrenaline still sky high after Cas’ sudden _emotion_ , redirects. They’ll get into it later. They’ll get into it when Cas has had a chance to breathe. “Anyway, you can cancel sending the money to Sam. He doesn't want my money. Our money. He wants to go it alone.”

Cas takes a moment to gather himself together before speaking again.

“And you're happy with that?” 

“No,” Dean says, “but I ain't getting into a passive aggressive bank war with Sam. If he don't want it he'll send it back.”

“Okay,”

“And you’re gonna go over the new system with me tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Cas says, leaning back into his seat, “You haven’t shaved,” he continues, eyes narrowed as he looks at him.

“Nice observational skills, darling’,” Dean says, shooting him a smirk, and they spend the rest of the journey talking about the concept of matching facial hair.

It turns out to be a really good date night. 

*

They don’t get as much house-crap done as they probably should on Sunday, but Dean _needs_ to catch a freaking break and have a chance to actually enjoy the fact that they have a house now. They’ve tripled the amount of space they had in the apartment (which begs a good question of how the hell everywhere seems so _full_ of stuff right now) and this place is there’s to do with what they want. The money they’re putting into their mortgage each month is making these four walls a little bit more their own every month, rather than into someone else’ pocket. He loves their kitchen, even if he hasn’t actually cooked in it yet. He freaking _loves_ their new sofa and the fact that they have a garage and a freaking garden. It’s _awesome_ and he’s love to have a chance to enjoy it all. 

So, screw it all, he’s cooking them both a roast dinner and they’re going to have a civilised meal in their _home_.

“This smells delicious,” Cas says, hovering by one of the kitchen counters close enough for Dean to touch.

“Damn right,” Dean says, glancing up from his phone to refocus in on the joint of beef he’s roasting. “Gotta treat my man right.”

“As long as you know that if you burn the potatoes, I will be leaving you.” 

“Noted,” Dean says, offering him a grin over his phone, before turning to the message that Charlie has sent him. She asked him how the new house was going half an hour ago and they’ve been sending rapid-fire catch up messages since, which is good. He misses Charlie being around. “Charlie slept with Dorothy again.”

“They’re very bad at breaking up,” 

“Yep. Oh, _man_ she photoshopped us into drag and, fuck, I’m a hot ass chick. You, however, should skip the make up. Obviously I still would, but I’m pretty biased.”

“That's good to hear. I'd take you in any packaging, no dirty insinuations intended. It doesn't really matter to me as long as you're you quintessential Dean.”

“Snap,” Dean says, eyeing his potatoes through the oven door, “What you said, but less articulate. Basically, I love you down to your bone marrow and I couldn’t give a fuck. This dinner is gonna be kick-ass.”

“Dean,” Cas says, mouth pulled a serious line, “I think you should take voluntary redundancy.” Dean nearly drops his phone because, _damnit_ , that’s not what he was expecting to happen.. “The payout would replenish our savings and gives us more security,”

“And _one_ income,” Dean says, “Do the math, Cas.”

“I _have_ done the math. Dean, you said that you were bored of your job. If they’re doing a redundancy process, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the opportunity for a promotion. You could earn more elsewhere. You have years of work experience now, Dean, I doubt it would take long for you to find a better job. This could be an opportunity.” 

“A _better_ job?” Dean asks, something a little sharp at the back of his throat, because... because that _sounds_ a hell of a lot like Dean isn’t good enough. “Where the hell is this coming from?”

“You said we’d discuss this,” Cas says, “I am _discussing_ it.”

“You’re being kind of an asshole,” Dean says, “Look, dinner -”

“And I’m going to accept the promotion.”

“What?” Dean asks, “No, you’re not. We talked about this. You _said_ it wasn’t worth the money. It’s - you’re not taking some job you don’t want because my job is in danger. I’ll _take_ you handling more of the household responsibilities crap while my head’s been out of the game, but there’s no way in hell you’re become a martyr.” 

“It’s not about that,” Cas says, “Zachariah is giving me the same amount of work he would have done if I had accepted the promotion. If I’m going to be doing the work, I might as well be adequately compensated for my time.”

“I have an _issue_ with the amount of time that he sucks away from you, period,” Dean says, “Let’s talk about not liking your job, Cas, because - news flash - you _hate_ Zachariah and Uriel and all of the numbnuts you call colleagues. How’s about _you_ take the opportunity to quit and save your freakin’ soul.” 

“This isn’t a negotiation,” 

“We’re supposed to be a _team_ ,” Dean snaps, “Okay, I haven’t been meeting my side of the bargain. That doesn’t mean I don’t get a vote.”

“This is what I _want_ , Dean,” Cas says, voice heated, “I’m not dictating what you do about the redundancy, that’s just what I _think_ , but I have made my mind up about work. You say your worried about money and I can fix that. I’d get to manage a team, which would mean _less_ time responding to Zachariah’s every whim, and I - I can do more there, Dean. I think I would be good at it.”

“You said you didn’t want to do it,” Dean says, shoulders squared up in his kitchen, “We sat in our apartment and we had a conversation about what you wanted to do, and you said you didn’t want anything to do with Zachariah buying you with a fancy office and a goddamn company car.”

“This… this isn’t anything to do with an office.”

“It feels like it’s something to do with you _providing_ for me, which is total bull.” 

“I want to take the job. I changed my mind.”

“Okay,” Dean exhales, the fight leaving him all for a sudden, leaving straight up exhaustion instead, “You wanna take the job, take the job. I’m out of this whole conversation. You don’t need me for it.”

“Dean,”

“No,” Dean says, shoulders squared, “My potatoes are beginning to catch, I’m tired, and I’m done. Sit and eat your goddamn dinner. I don’t want to talk about any of this anymore.” 

Cas, thank fuck, doesn’t debate it with him.

*

Monday sucks.

The atmosphere at work sucks. The uneasy way that Cas moved around him that morning sucks. He’s cranky, he _still_ hasn’t found his razor and he doesn’t much feel like going home to their boxes and more unpacking. It sucks even more when a text from Cas rolls in just before he’s about to finish work, that pisses him off enough that he almost calls Benny to ask if they can hit up the gym before he realises that he’s pissed as hell at Benny _too_.

It just says ‘ _will be late home from work. Celebratory drinks_ ’ which means that they’re either belated celebrating them buying a house, or he took the damn promotion after all. 

Dean’s stewing in irritation and readying himself for a full on argument by the time Cas gets back home, because he’s gunning for a fight right now. He’s _fully_ prepared to drag out the fact that Cas was more than ready to crucify him for saying - under duress - that he regretting buying the house, plus the rest of the bullcrap that’s gone on these past few weeks. He spent all goddamn night feeling inadequate and shitty, and that’s now how any of this is supposed to make him feel. 

Then he gets home and finds that Castiel has purchased him a carbon copy of his favourite saucepan to replace the one Benny threw up in, and any appeal of butting heads with his kick ass, awesome fiancé swirls down the drain. Cas is trying. Cas loves him. Cas is the most amazing freaking person Dean’s ever met. He wants a goddamn _hug_ not an argument. 

Instead, he heads over to Benny’s old house and has a long, painful conversation with Benny’s wife, Benny’s daughter asleep in his arms, and they talk about what they need to do next.


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel is a handsy drunk. Only with _Dean_ and only significantly after they worked out their boundaries and settled into their relationship (before that, Dean's pretty sure Cas was even more of a stickler for social boundaries, which just about figures) but now he associates Cas drinking a lot with Cas’ lack of awareness of personal space intensifying. It’s not even sexual, or whatever the hell else, it’s like the guy becomes even more of a comfort whore and Dean’s a goddamn comfort blanket. The one Christmas they did with Cas’ family, Cas drank a significant amount of eggnog and became steadily more liable to resting a hand on Dean’s thigh, or on his shoulders, or to want to be tucked under Dean’s arm. It’s all the kind of shit that Dean usually bestows on him when they’re _alone_ but not in front of Castiel’s Mom - who’s freaking terrifying, for the record - meaning Dean got gradually more uncomfortable for the rest of the night.

He knows that Cas has drunk more than he probably intended from the way he slips under the covers and proceeds to try to _snuggle_ like it’s going out of style. His hands are cold, but the overriding issue is that Dean was pretty much asleep and now he’s really _not_. 

He’s not all that sure he feels like being Cas’ human teddy bear right now, anyway, his new saucepan be damned. 

“Cut it out,” Dean mutters, as two arms sneak around his waist. 

Even a little tipsy, Cas is still the most respectful guy on the damn planet and backs off before Dean can finish the sentence, he just looks so goddamn sad about it that it takes a lot of will not to just give in. Damnit.

“So - you, uh, have a good night?” Dean asks, twisting to face him, expression hard.

“You’re mad at me.”

“I’m,” Dean begins but, fuck, he _is_ mad at him, saucepan be damned. It’s late and he’s tired and he’s not in the mood to beat around the goddamn bush. “You _think_? What gave it away, Cas? The part where I called you a dick and yelled at you or where I ignored your messages all day?”

Cas exhales that way he does that makes Dean’s chest clench, that always makes him feels like the biggest jerk in America, then his upper level reason kicks in and he registers that _drunk Cas_ allows the doubts he carries round about himself to run the show rule a little more. He gets less confident, more maudlin, with the lowered inhibitions making it more likely for him to indulge in the tactile crap that will actually help. 

“I can relegate myself to the sofa if you prefer,” Cas says, look pathetic enough that his wave of anger evaporates again because… Because Dean's not dumb enough not to know that Cas is feeling insecure, generally, at the moment. That's the whole reason he got so uppity about Dean being worried about the house. There's _something_ going on and that something probably means a lot more than this argument, even if Dean is pissed.

“Ah - damnit. I’m not banish you mad, get over here,” Dean mutters, shifting into Cas’ side of the bed to wrap his arms around him, “But you’re being the little spoon. Fucking deal with it.”

“Dean,”

“It’s late,” Dean mutters into the shell of his ear, “And you - you do so much for me, Cas. I don't even know where to start.” 

“I irritate you,” Cas exhales, like he’s at confession. 

Damnit.

“No, Cas, come on. We wind each other, sure, and I get frustrated, but mostly I just freakin’ adore you, and being pissed at you doesn't change the fact that you're the love of my life.”

“I’m not _handling_ things well, Dean.”

“You,” Dean says, shutting his eyes because _damnit_ it’s late and he really wasn’t expecting them to get into a freaking deep conversation in the middle of the damn night. “Cas, we’re not talking about this now. We _will_ , okay, but it’s - “ Dean frowns at his watch, “It’s nearly two AM and you’re alarm’s set for six. You need to sleep. I need to sleep but - you don’t need to worry, about us. I’ve got you and I’m sure as hell not letting that change.”

“I haven’t kissed you today,”

“We’re like, two hours into the day, Cas.”

“I mean, since I woke up,” Cas says, mouth tipped into a frown as he shifts in the circle of Dean’s arms.

“You’re a needy sonuvabitch the other side of a bottle of wine,” Dean says, tracing Cas’ jawline with his thumb, tilting his chin upwards. The pad of his thumb catches on Cas’ peach fuzz and, _yeah_ , he can totally dig Castiel with facial hair. Their noses brush together as Dean smiles, coaxes him in, kisses him briefly. Cas settles against half lying on his shoulder and kisses him again. Soft. “Sleep, darlin’.” 

“Hm,” Cas returns, “I love you.”

“Right back at you, you freaking drunk,” Dean says, eyes shut, as he runs traces his knuckles down Cas’ back, letting himself settle back into the comfort of _this_. Of Cas, right here, in their bed, close. “Hey. Thanks for the saucepan.”

“Goodnight, Dean.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean returns, in the moments before he drifts asleep, with Cas curled up in the expanse of his arms.

*

“Huh,” Dean says, around half five when Cas walks into the kitchen with his usual trench coat and the expression of someone who’s mined their reserves of patience, twice over, and been asked to deliver on a little more. “Dude, I didn’t know you knew this place existed before six in the evening.”

“I am exceptionally tired, Dean.”

“Sorry,” Dean says, mouth pulling up into a smile, “It’s good to have you home. You wanna get in on your _daily kiss_ now or later.”

“You may be mocking me,” Cas says, shedding his coat and leaving it on the back of the damn kitchen chair, “But I will take it now, and then I am going to climb into our bed and sleep.”

“We bought a house with a freaking coat cupboard, Cas, hang it up.”

“Dean,” Cas says, “Kiss.” 

“One of these days, I’m gonna ransom my body till you quit leaving your coat around,” Dean says, letting Cas wrap his arms around his neck and draw him into a long kiss. “Work okay?”

“Long,” Castiel says, settling into a hug, “You’re mad at me.”

“Thought you wanted to sleep, not get into this bullshit.”

“Dean,” Cas says, stepping back to assess him. He _looks_ tired. If Dean was feeling a little more charitable, he’d hold off on getting prissy until after Cas has had his nap, but he already postponed being pissed off for drunk-Cas, and tired-Cas is still cute, but not as compellingly so. 

“Does it matter? You took the job yesterday, right? It’s done,” Dean says, jaw clenching by accident, “I’m guessin’ that’s why you went out for celebratory drinks given you didn’t actually tell me. Man, I’m sad I didn’t get an invite. Shooting the shit with Zach and Urinal - sounds fun.” 

“I told you I was going to take the job,”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “I guess you did. Thing is, _Castiel_ , I thought we discussed crap like this together, rather than you _telling me_ exactly what it is you’re gonna do the next freakin’ day.” 

“Dean, whenever I tried to broach the subject you’d divert away from the issue.”

“You have _met me_ before, right? That’s what I do.”

“There is a time limit on these things, Dean, they can’t be put off until it’s convenient for you to deal with. Not all crap can be ‘stowed’ until you are ready. I _wanted_ to talk to you.” 

“You wanted to _tell me_ that you’d gone ahead and made a decision all on your own. There’s a difference.” 

“Dean. We are talking about _my_ job.”

“Is that supposed to imply that it doesn’t affect me?” Dean demands, “Because screw that, Cas. You can’t get all righteous about freakin _money_ and then put your job off limits. No fucking way. Actually, screw this whole conversation. I’m just going to go ahead and apply for redundancy and get some bullshit other job that pays more money, because apparently I don’t have a goddamn relationship, I have a dictatorship.” 

“Do you regret buying this house with me?” Cas asks, voice icey calm stretched over _something_. 

“Why the _hell_ are we going back to that?” Dean asks, “We talked about that. We addressed it. That’s - it’s about money and not a damn thing to do with anything else about our relationship.”

“Because it was my decision, Dean, I said it was the right time. I _suggested_ that we start looking,” Cas says, imploring enough that they might just be boarding on some of the stuff that’s been bothering Cas this whole time. 

“Damnit, Cas, I’m not questioning every decision you’ve ever made, I’m just saying that _this_ is total bullcrap. And you didn’t _tell_ me we were gonna buy a freakin’ house. We - we’ve had that plan for years. This part where you become Zachariah’s bitch is all brand new.” 

“It’s done,” Cas says, retreating into himself, “I’ve taken the job. I don’t know what you expect me to do now. I’m not going to undo it.”

“That’s not what I want,” Dean sighs, the fight leaving him all of sudden. It’s _Tuesday_ and this whole week is already a write off. Cas wants him to declare voluntary redundancy and earn more money and it’s all way too _serious_ and suffocating for a goddamn Tuesday. He doesn’t want this argument. He doesn’t want Cas to take this job. He doesn’t _want_ Cas to act like Dean’s not justified in being pissed off. 

“What do you want?” Cas asks, earnest, calm.

“For a start, I want you to hang up your damn coat,” Dean mutters, “I just - a little acknowledgement that you’re acting like an asshole would be sweet. Then there’s the whole thing called an apology that could be worth exploring.”

“You are aware that you’re acting like an asshole too.”

“Yeah I’m a-freaking-ware,” Dean bites back, “Damnit - why do we always argue?”

“We’re both stubborn and irritable,” Cas says, “I really want to go to sleep, Dean, please can we -”

“- Yeah,” Dean exhales, “Yeah, Cas, go take your nap. I’ll cook some food. I’ll wake you when it’s ready.”

“I - I’m sorry.”

“About bailing on this conversation to sleep, or about the rest of it?”

“Both,” Cas says, hovering close into his side for a few moments, “You still haven’t shaved.”

“Still haven’t found my razor,” Dean throws back, resting a hand on Cas’ hip, guiding him to sway closer into his presence to drop a kiss on his forehead. He fucking _loves_ Castiel so much, but relationships are hard, and adulthood is a pain in the goddamn neck, and none of this is easy. It’ll be fine. He _knows_ it’ll be fine, but that doesn’t make this bit any less shitty right now. “What d’you think?”

“I don’t know,” Cas says, “I’ve had eight years of clean shaven Dean Winchester. You… you look different.”

“I’m digging it on you,” Dean says, reaching out to run his thumb over the rough of his almost-beard. “Now get your ass to bed.”

He spends the next hour or so slow cooking chilli while bitching to Bobby about Cas’ bad attitude and how much he hates moving, because _still_ nothing is done and nothing appears to be getting done any time soon. Bobby - god bless Bobby - listens to him rant for a good thirty minutes until he asks whether Dean’s actually offered Cas a congratulations on his promotion. He’s not _wrong_ , either, which is annoying and burrows under his skin until food’s ready.

He winds up bringing it up to Cas in bed and they eat with another episode of Ru Paul’s drag race on Cas’ work laptop.

*

After nearly five years of being in a relationship, he’s about as comfortable with bestowing physical touch on Cas as he is with his own body. It feels just about as natural to rest a hand on Cas’ arm as it does to rub his own neck. They’ve kissed more times than he could count. He’s spent inumerable hours with Cas cosied up to him on the sofa. He knows how Cas’ body works; where he’s ticklish, which part of his back to rest his hand to drain the tension out of shoulders, what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He can get Cas from zero to sixty miles an hour with a couple of touches and they’ve had enough sex that they’re really, really fucking good at it. He knows how to calm him down when he’s emotional. He’s seen him chucking up his guts and bedridden with the flu and he is absolutely comfortable with all of it.

Except, right now, he doesn’t where they stand.

He’s back to second guessing himself and just… _not_ feeling like he can just trace circles on Cas’ knee while they’re watching TV and not crowd up behind him just because when he’s doing the dishes, or whatever. 

It sucks. He doesn’t want it. He wants to feel like they’re a team again. He wants to banish this crappy sense that Cas is in some way _disappointed_ in him. That he wants _more_ in a sense that Dean can’t give him. It feels illogical when he digs at it too hard, but it’s settled under his ribs and set up shop there, and it’s exhausting and crappy.

“Hello Dean,” Cas says, stepping into the living room half way through shedding his coat. 

“Huh. You’re home before half six twice in one week? I just figured we were being burgled.” 

“You are deeply funny, as always,” Cas says, gaze drifting to where the news is playing on the screen, “It’s Samandriel birthday meal.”

“Riightt,” Dean says, watching Cas’ eyes settle on the TV while he remains impenetrably far away in the doorway. It feels like normally he would sit next to him, or lean against the arm, or _something_ , but maybe Dean’s just overthinking. He does that. “Damnit. I agreed to go to that, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Cas says, turning to look at him instead, gaze blue and piercing as ever, “You’re under no obligation to.”

“Uhuh. Actually under no obligation, or you’ll be pissed if I back out, I’m just not contractually obliged to go, no obligation.” 

“You don’t want to go?”

“Not really,” Dean says, “I’m pretty beat and I haven’t spoken to Sam all week. Figured I’d call him and get an early night but… if you _want_ me to go.” 

“Will your brother be available on a Friday night?”

“Kid just got dumped,” 

“I didn’t know he was dating anyone.”

“He - they went on like, two dates. Sam’s fine,” Dean says, waving this away, because he doesn’t want Cas to think he’s _keeping_ things from him, it’s just irrelevant. Sam’s too damn busy studying to get involved in anything serious, anyway. He’s too independent for his own good. “You want me to come with you?”

“Ideally, yes,” Cas frowns, “No, ideally I could cancel and join you for that early night.”

“Do that. Play hooky,” Dean says, “Guaranteed I could make it worth your while, hotstuff.”

“ _But_ Samandriel is a friend and it is his birthday.”

“Okay,” Dean says, reaching for the remote, “I’ll jump in the shower.”

“No,” Cas says, weary, “Stay, Dean.”

“Really? Cause I could -”

“There’s no need multiplying misery,” Cas says, finally half resting on the sofa, hand drifting to rest on Dean’s shoulder, “And we do have the whole weekend to ourselves.”

“Yeah, for more house work,” Dean counters, “And moving crap.” 

“We should have date night tomorrow.”

“Done and done,” Dean says, “Cas, if you really want me to go -”

“ - I mean the _no obligation_ version of no obligation, not doublespeak. It’s been a long week. Call your brother. I am capable of conducting social interactions without you.”

“It’s just not as fun, right?”

“Everything is less enjoyable without you, Dean,” Cas says, unwaveringly serious because Cas is the kind of person who can pull sincere declarations like that on any given Friday night. It’s not like Dean finds that as hard as he used to. He can say _I love you_ without it feeling like he’s pulling teeth and he can mutter all his sentimental truths when they’re alone and close, but Cas can just _say how he feels about Dean_ ; in public, in front of people, whenever. 

“S’good job we’re life partners, then,” Dean says, mouth dry as Cas frowns at the TV with that familiar impassive expression that reveals way more than Cas probably ever thought it could. He feels far away, with a whole host of crap locked away in his head. “Cas,” Dean says, tangling his fingers up in the bottom of Cas’ shirt, tugging him a little closer. “We good?”

“We’re excellent,” Cas says, drifting into the touch. Cas is solid and warm and it feels _okay_ for Dean to rest against his hip. “I - I’m sorry that you didn’t want me to take the job.”

“Five years are you’re still crap at apologies,” Dean says, smiling a little, “Dude- you’re not supposed to apologise for _my_ opinion.” 

“An apology is an expression of regret. I _regret_ your opinion on this.” Dean huffs a laugh at that and let Cas run a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t my intention to exclude you from any decision making process.”

“Never doubted your intentions, either,” Dean says, shutting his eyes, “They’re always squeaky-clean. I get it. You just… ambushed me.”

“Dean,” Cas says, voice quiet, “I tried.”

“Not hard enough, man.”

“Perhaps,” Cas says, “But I am not a dictator.”

“Yeah, that’s all me being a straight up asshole when I’m upset,” Dean sighs, “Which, for the formal record, I still am. Upset. That’s not why I’m bailing tonight, though. I could just… use some sleep.”

“That doesn’t qualify as an apology either.” Cas says, but his mouth is titled into a small smile, which means they’re probably okay. 

“Okay,” Dean says, “I regret that you overreacted to the words that came out of my mouth. How’s that?” 

“Very compelling,” Cas says, “You sound almost as sincere as my mother.” 

“Huh. So it’s a Novak thing. The Novak school of crappy apologies. Catchy.” Dean says, pulling Cas _onto_ the sofa and onto his lap because, damnit, they’ve been all physically distant and _off_ all week, and he needs this. “What else do I need to learn?”

“Hmm. Your attempt was too outwardly accustory. The key is to ensure that the passive aggression is packaged in politeness. For example, _Dean_ , I am deeply sorry that my actions lead to you lashing out verbally.” 

“Nice,”

“The key is to ensure the other person walks away feeling a mixture of intense guilt and frustration. Michael is a true expert.” 

“Michael is straight up douchebag.”

“I am sorry that you find dealing with my family inconvenient,” Cas says, smiling as frames Dean’s face with his hands, blue eyes sparking with the familiar warmth. “I am sorry that this week has meant you’re unwilling to come with me to my social engagement,” Cas continues, “I am sorry that my attempts to put us in a better financial position have made you unhappy.”

“You - damnit,” Dean says, Cas’ smile catching, till he’s grinning back at him even though this whole conversation is ridiculous. “You can’t _win_ a fight by pulling this crap. It’s cheating.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, mock serious, “I’m very sorry that your need to win makes you so argumentative.”

“Don’t you need to get ready for this birthday dinner crap?”

“Yes,” Cas says, his smile dissolving, “I am sorry, Dean, truly.”

“Snap,” Dean says, “You sure you don’t need me to come with you?”

Cas nods and kisses him, way too briefly, before he detangles himself and gets ready to leave. 

*

Dean is determined that _this_ Saturday is going to be good. They’re going to make good progress on the house. They’re going to spend good, quality time together as a pair. They’re going to have a freaking _awesome_ date night and they going to talk out whatever the hell is that’s wrong with _them_ , till everything is peachy again. 

And then the fucking oven stops working twenty minutes after Cas has set off to walmart to buy groceries.

By the time Cas gets back, he’s laid on the floor with half the cupboard taken apart trying to work out whether it’s some kind of wiring fault or the actual _oven_ and all the progress he made last weekend in sorting the kitchen is shot to hell. 

“I - hello,” Cas says, pausing behind him, “This looks… unideal.”

“You seen any other switches in this place?”

“Switches?”

“Yep. Think the localised fuse has blown, but I’ve got no freaking idea _where_. Who the hell builds a goddamn cupboard over the switch for your oven?”

“There’s a switch above the plate cupboard.”

“No dice,” Dean says, “Got no idea _what_ that is supposed to do, but I’m not gonna rip the units out to find out. Goddamnit. The crazy chick who used to own this place did some weird ass wiring.”

“It was probably a qualified electrician.” 

“You _hope_ ,” Dean mutters, “Think I need to head out and buy a voltage tester, check if this baby is live. Could be a loose wire, I guess, but I don’t really feel like poking around and finding out without knowing.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, mouth pulled into a frown, “About that former mentioned qualified electrician. Perhaps -”

“ - I can handle it,” Dean cuts across, “We don’t need some asshat coming here and overcharging us for a blown fuse.”

“You can’t _find_ a fuse.”

“Yet,” Dean says, grimly, “Cas, I know how to do this. You’re the brains of this operation, but I can handle an oven that won’t turn on.”

“That wasn’t an attempt to undermine you,” Cas says, setting the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter, “And I take exception to you undermining your own intelligence, but you are not, in fact, a qualified electrician.”

“Look, my Dad -”

“ - who was also _not_ a qualified electrician -”

“ - he made sure we knew this crap,” Dean finishes, setting their screwdriver down to reposition the torch light on his phone.

“You’re… taking apart the socket.”

“Cas,” Dean says, “I got this, okay?”

“Dean, is this _safe_?” 

“Look, I tripped the fuse. It’s all off.”

“There’s a difference between erecting a wardrobe and dismantling the wiring of our kitchen, Dean.”

“Castiel,” Dean says, sitting up to meet his eye, “We’re not paying someone to fix something I can do myself.” 

“Is this an outworking of toxic masculinity?” Cas asks, deadly serious, “Because I assure that my level of interest in you sexually has nothing to do with your ability to fix our oven.”

“You say that now,” Dean throws back, “But I was gonna cook you meatloaf for date night and I can’t do that without a freakin’ oven.” 

“How will my sex drive survive?” Cas asks, dryly, “Your continued existence is essential to my life plan, Dean. Please be careful.”

“I swear to god, Cas, I can fix this without endangering my life in any way. Capisce?” 

“I capisce,” Cas returns, solemnly, sitting at the kitchen island and watching as Dean tries to get most of his head in the cupboard again so he can screw the front of the socket back on until he can test whether it’s actually functioning. Dean can feel his eyes on him until he’s back out the cupboard and standing up. “I didn’t buy the ingredients for meatloaf.” 

“Hey, no one’s perfect,” Dean says, setting down his screwdriver, “I figured we should, uh,” Dean begins, swallows, “Celebrate your new job tonight.” 

“You want to… celebrate my new job?”

“Which part of that sentence are you struggling with?”

“You hate my new job,” Cas says.

“I - maybe,” Dean says, “But you’re convinced that _you_ don’t hate it, so I’m - I’m down. I’m on board. I’m ready for a goddamn party,” Dean says, “In sickness and health, right? And if the sweet life of Zach and Cas is your sickness then, hell, let’s crack open the damn champagne and drink to your promotion.” 

“Is this you attempting to be supportive?” Cas asks, his lips pulled into an almost smile as he forces himself into action and unloading the groceries into their fridge. Their kitchen is a goddamn mess, as it has been since they moved in pretty much, and it’s freaking exhausting. 

“Yeah, so suck it up, sunshine.”

“Dean, I know you disagree with this decision. I don't need you to support it,” Cas says, casual as anything like while he’s putting the milk in the fridge, like anything about that sentence is _okay_.

“You don't need me to support your decisions?” Dean asks, his gut twisting painfully. His lungs constrict slightly after he’s said it, too, because then he’s _hearing_ it again. Cas, Castiel, doesn’t need him to support his decisions. He doesn’t _need Dean_ to support his decisions. That’s sure as hell what it had felt like when Cas told him what he was going to do, but it’s something else to hear it phrased like that because, because… that’s not right. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Dean had figured most of this had been in his head but Cas - 

Cas doesn’t need his support. 

“Huh. It's like that.”

“We've discussed this -” Cas begins, looking wary as he turns round and shuts the fridge.

“ - Doesn't mean we got anywhere with it,” Dean says, voice catching at the back of his throat with some ugly fear that all the insecurity he’s been feeling about them for the past few weeks is _valid_. That’s there’s actually something wrong here. They’re not just worn out and cranky, it’s -- this is a real life big fucking problem. “You don't _need_ me to support your decisions.”

“Obviously I want you to support my decisions -”

“No, you don't,” Dean says, stomach plummeting, now. “Because that's what I just freaking suggested; me trying to support your decision even though I think it sucks ass - and you don't want it.”

“No, I don't want you to _try_ when I know that you think it ‘sucks ass’.”

“Goddamnit, Cas, I'm trying and you - you don't need me to support your decisions. So, what, it doesn't matter what I think? Not at all?”

“That's not what I meant,” Cas says, closed off and _cold_ in that way he gets that endlessly frustrating. He’s always hated when Cas stonewalls him with polite, reserved comments that give so little away about how he actually _feels_ , but now it’s just -

It’s imperative that they talk about this. 

“But you just _said it_ , Cas,” Dean says, heart hammering, “Cas you - I need you to support my decisions. Damnit, I need you. I need you to be _okay_ with whatever the hell I do about this job - about Benny, Sam. You bet your ass I need you to support those decisions.”

“Dean,”

“What the hell am I, Cas, your freaking arm candy? We're supposed to be a team.”

“We are a _team_ ,” Cas says, “I don't want to argue with you again.”

“Fuck, Cas, I'm not looking for a fight, but you - you don't _need_ me to support your decisions? You don't need my input at all? You don't think that's a massive fucking problem? That's not what I signed up for and now you're…. you're telling me I should take this freaking redundancy and get a new job and I, I got no idea when the hell this got screwed up. This is a freaking _power imbalance_.”

“It wasn't an instruction. I was just telling you what I thought.”

“Cas,” Dean says, heart thudding in his chest, “What exactly is your problem here?”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Cas says, closed off, impenetrable, in that way that drives Dean crazy because - damnit - they’re not supposed to this anymore. Cas is supposed to talk to him. All of this stuff is too big for him to be keeping it locked in his head. “I don’t _have_ a problem.” 

“Really? ‘Cause ever since that dumb conversation with Sam I feel like I'm disappointing you, I just can't pin down what I’m doing wrong, here, and now it turns out you don’t even _care_ what I think and you… You said you get why I freaked about the house and Benny. You said you didn't care about getting married. Now you’re taking a promotion without talking to me and you think my _job_ isn’t good enough and - all that crap you said about earning more and promotions and money. I just don’t understand where the hell this came from. I just want to fix this.”

“It’s not _broken_ ,” Cas cuts in, emotional wrestling into his voice, which at least means they might _get_ somewhere. Cas can be stubborn as hell when he’s not in the mood to talk and Dean… Dean needs to talk about this, right now. He needs it dealt with. He can’t deal with all of this _adult crap_ if he doesn’t have things sorted with Cas. That’s just how he’s wired, now. “I am not disappointed in you. You are the least disappointing thing in my life. You _know_ that -”

“Okay,” Dean says, “Except, that’s not how it feels, Cas. That’s not how I _feel_. And… and _I get it_ , I get that I've been… Caught up in this crap with losing my Dad, but now you're going off and doing stuff on your own, and you don't even care what I think and I _don’t know what you want_.”

Cas breaks eye contact.

This is too big for Dean to let it slide. Too important. They didn’t spend all that time with a goddamn solicitor hashing it out so that legally Cas would be the most important person in his life just to _not_ deal with their crap. They can’t argue about the goddamn mortgage and their future. They _can’t_. Their relationship is too precious. What they’ve _built_ here is too important. 

“Damnit, Cas, what do you want?” Dean asks, raw, dredged up from the pit of _fear_ that’s been threatening to erupt since this shitty conversation began. “Tell me what you want and I'll do it. I'll do it. I'm in love with you. You want me to earn more money I'll earn more money I just don't understand where the hell this has come from. I'll get someone to fix the oven. I'll kiss Zach's feet. There’s not a single fucking thing I wouldn’t do for you. You’re _everything_ , Cas, Castiel, I just - I need you to talk to me. _Please_.”

“I want to adopt,” Cas says, voice cutting through the kitchen, “To _discuss_ adoption.”

And that is… not what he was expecting. 

“What?”

“You had a _plan_ , Dean,” Cas says, “You proposed. We had trajectory. We were headed in a certain direction. I don't care that you don't want to get married yet, or ever, but I care that we got _off_ that course completely. I pushed to buy a house because I wanted to do that _with you_ and I think... I think you agreed because its financially sensible and because you love this house, which are not bad reasons, Dean. They're _good_ reasons but they're not - they’re not my reasons, and now I feel like we’ve done it wrong and it’s _my fault_ but I want - I want you to think about the future again, because you _stopped_ , Dean, you stopped planning.”

“I, Cas, I don’t know what you mean,” Dean says, still shaky and raw. “I stopped _planning_ What -?”

Cas’ hands land on his arm.

“Losing your father, was -”

“ - _Dad_ doesn’t have anything to do with our future. Our plans.”

“Do you want children?” Cas asks, fixing him with that particular stare. 

“You can’t just _throw_ that question on me in the middle of a damn argument. I don’t know. I don’t _know_ , Cas.”

“But you _did_ know, Dean. You knew. We’ve talked about this. You told me four years ago you wanted children, one day. You _wanted_ to adopt. You wanted to marry me. You had a plan _for us_ and then your father died and you understandably lost focus -”

“- well I'm real fucking sorry for the inconvenience.”

“ - Dean, do not be purposefully inflammatory. You _know_ that I - that I understand. That I am not trying to belittle that event in your life, I’m just trying to explain what I need. I need… I need to know if the plan has changed. I’m not asking you to _tell me now_ but I… I want to discuss it again. I don’t want big life events to slip by because… because we were too busy bickering about who should fix the oven. Dean. I love you. I don’t _care_ if we don’t get married, or adopt, or move ever again, but I need those to be our _decisions_ rather than things that happened while we weren’t paying attention. Life is _happening_ , Dean. It can take years to adopt a child and we would need to prove that we’re financial stable. We would need to _research_ what they want. We’d need to save for their college fees. I’m just trying to be intentional about our future. I’m not _disappointed_ in you, Dean, not for a second, I just -”

“- you took this promotion to pay for our kids college fees,” Dean says, mouth a little dry, “You - you’ve really been thinking about this.”

“We bought a _house_ , Dean,” Cas says, mouth pulled into a frown, “We have three bedrooms. This could be where we raise a family and I… I knew you _weren’t_ thinking about it, so I tried to overcompensate and I - I _do_ regret buying this house, now, at this point in our lives, because you weren’t there yet. You’re grieving. You’re not _planning_ , Dean, and I’m -”

“ - Cas, it’s okay,” Dean says, stepping into his personal space a little more, “Cas, come on. I’m right here.”

“ _You_ said we should move to a one bedroom apartment. You said we should move in together.”

“We already lived together,” Dean says, taking hold of his arms to steady him, “Cas,”

“I’m _no good_ at this, Dean,” Cas says, “You’re not supposed to think that I am undermining you. I didn’t _mean_ that I don’t need your support but I -”

“Hey,” Dean says, moving his hand to Cas’ cheek to ensure that he meets his gaze, “You being so invested in our future that you willingly spend more time with Zachariah makes a lot more sense to me that all the other things I was thinking. Context. Okay. I can work with that.”

“What are you thinking now?” Cas asks, gaze paralysingly intent.

“I - I need to process,” Dean says, throat tight, “That is … a lot. I hear you. I’m listening. I just, I need to think.”

“Dean,”

“I need to think and I need to fix our damn oven, so I’m gonna… gonna go to the store, but - good talk.”

“Dean,” Cas says again, still close, “I love you.”

“Yeah,” Dean exhales, “Me too, Cas, obviously. All the time. Always. I love you and I’m not - not mad at you. Not _anything_ at you, I’ve just got to think. Let’s just park this here, okay? For today.”

“Okay,” Cas says, not making an effort to move away from him. “I… I would like for us to celebrate my promotion, if the offer still stands.”

“Course,” Dean says, leaning forwards to kiss him, just briefly, before he backs off to grab his coat.

He picks up a bottle of Cas’ favourite wine on the way home. 

They have a good stay-at-home date night that turns into the kind of sex fuelled by _urgency_ and passion, rather than their usual simmering heat, which goes along way to cutting off both of their insecurities before they can properly take root. They stay up, after, and talk about other stuff; how Zachariah gets more pretentious when he drinks, Sam’s lack of love life, Bobby and Ellen. It feels like they haven’t touched base, properly, all week, and it’s bone deep relief to finally be connecting again.

He falls asleep in the midst of a half formed thought about what it's going to be like to grow old with _Cas_.


	7. Chapter 7

“You keeping coming home from work on time, I’m gonna start getting expectin’ it,” Dean says, without turning away from the sink. It’s a little after six fifteen, so Dean’s still been home a good half an hour but that’s still impressively early for Cas. He’s been doing that. Maybe this promotion wasn’t so bad after all, in that Cas hates it enough that he actually leaves. “You got post.”

“I think we’re at the point where you are entitled to open my post, Dean.”

“Well, hey, now we know what to say in our vows,” Dean throws back, turning around to watch Cas narrow his eyes at the package on the kitchen table. “You order something?”

“No,” Cas says, gaze fixed on the box. “I love you.”

“You okay?” Dean asks, eyes crinkling in concern, abandoning the last of the non-dishwasher safe mugs (a gift from Castiel’s mom, obviously, and only used because the kitchen’s been such a freaking disaster they have dealt with any of the dishes) to invade in his personal space. “Cas.”

“There doesn’t have to be anything wrong with me to tell you I love you.”

“Huh. Declarations of affection _and_ you’re prickly this evening. Awesome.”

“Do you remember telling me that making audible observations about someone’s mood is irritating?”

“Yep,” Dean smiles, “What’s in the box, Cas?” 

“I,” Cas begins, frown intensifying as he peels off the tape, “My mother.”

“Your _Mom_ is in that box?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Dean,”

“You like it,” Dean says, resting his hands on Cas’ shoulders and pressing into the warmth of his personal space. He’s about as tense as Dean would expect. Their argument this weekend took it out of him and he hasn’t quite managed to shake off the baggage of it all. “Love you too, Sweetheart. Is this - hey, did Naomi send over your childhood stuff?”

“Some of it,” Cas says, blue gaze intense and sharp as he starts pulling things out of the box. Books, mostly, but other things too. A freaking science trophy. A soft toy rabbit that looks like his ear’s been enthusiastically chewed. Photos. 

“You have more?” Dean asks, smiling as he picks up the rabbit and runs a thumb over the well-worn fluff of his head. “This your _teddy_?”

“Yes, I had a soft toy when I was an infant, Dean.”

“This little guy got a name?” 

“Rabbit.”

“You called your rabbit, Rabbit?” Dean asks, smile broadening, “I bet you were the cutest, serious little kid. Oh, hey, pictures,” Dean grins, sifting through a collection of freaking _school certificates_ to find a couple of family holiday pictures. Cas is seven or eight, maybe, with the most forced smile Dean’s ever seen plastered across his face. Dean traces the outline of Cas’s dumb, kid shorts and his blue, blue eyes. “You are fucking adorable.” 

“Dean,”

“Look at you.” “I have seen these before.”

“Why haven’t _I_ seen this before?” Dean asks, pulling up a seat to thumb through Cas through the ages. He’s so _familiar_ , but he’s never seen Cas from this particular angle before. Cas before Dean. Cas small, less confident, young. “Isn’t that a relationship rite of passage. Awkward baby pictures?”

“I didn’t know my mother had kept them,” Cas says, rabbit in his left hand, fingers unconsciously stroking Rabbit’s ears in possibly the sweetest goddamn gesture of all time. Dean forgets, sometimes, how the constant hum of being totally in love with his best friend can sharpen itself into a point and pierce him with the shock of how real it all is. Cas is _everything_. Knowing Cas, still young, still yet to be moulded into this perfect goddamn human, almost definitely used to clutch his damn soft toy rabbit and rub his battered old ears for comfort. Cas wore that fur away. Carried it places. Solemnly christened him Rabbit. 

“Did she say she was gonna send this stuff?”

“No, I suspect this is an act of passive aggression about us buying a house without her assistance or input,” Cas says, without a trace of emotion about any of it. Cas’ relationship with his family has always been a bit of a mystery, even if Dean’s had enough time to detangle some of it. They communicate in big, meaningly-laden gestures and very little words. Most of the time, he’s beyond getting bogged down in it, until every so often something cuts a little too deep. 

“Still, this is sweet. You’re sweet.”

“I’m owed some baby photos, too.”

“Sorry, darling, the early stuff went up in flames, the rest Dad probably chucked out years ago. I got those pictures of my Mom and that’s about it. Bobby might have some stuff of Sam’s, maybe. We should order take out and go through the rest of your stuff.” 

“We bought groceries,”

“Yeah, but,” Dean says, “Mini-Castiel. I wanna hear all about it.” 

“You _know_ this stuff,” Cas says, warm and close, rabbit still in his hand. He moves so that’s he’s stood half behind him at the table, watching over Dean’s shoulder as he flicks through a whole range of achievement certificates issued by Cas’ freaking pre-school. 

“Sure, but I didn’t have the artefacts. I get a whole new insight into your _life_ , here, screw cooking.”

“It’s good that you find this cute,” Cas returns, “Because I imagine this is the beginning of a large quantity of packages being delivered.” 

“You have that much stuff at your Mom’s place?” 

“Our existence was less nomadic. I had a lot of opportunity to gain things.”

“Books,”

“Yes,” Cas says, “We should throw most of it away.”

“No goddamn way,” Dean says, “We’ll find somewhere to put it.”

“You _really_ want to dig through my childhood memorabilia? Why?”

“There is not a damn thing about you that I don’t find captivating,” Dean says, “You cut up your knees, here.”

“Michael tripped me over.” 

“See, I didn’t know that.”

“What kind of take out?”

“Hm, Thai food,” Dean says, “Maybe. You order. Kinda wanna take a shower.” 

“You trust me to order you thai food?” Cas asks, “We can add that to our wedding vows, too.”

“Damn fucking straight,” Dean says, standing up and pulling Cas into a kiss, long and indulgent, “And there’s your daily kiss, buddy.”

“Will you stop mocking me for that soon?” Cas asks, hands settling on his waist, resting their foreheads together briefly. “I should call my mother to acknowledge receipt of her gesture.” 

“After you’ve ordered the food though,” Dean says, reaching out to run a thumb over the rough of Cas’ cheek and the peach fuzz that he’s grown since they moved here. “Because, Dude, I’m hungry.”

“Okay,” Cas says, leaning forward to kiss him one last time before reaching for his phone.

*

Cas is still on the phone to his mother - in the study, which probably means the conversation’s a total shit show - when their food arrives. He winds up having to slip into the study to dig Cas’ wallet out of the pocket of his pants while he hums disinterested ‘I’m listening’ noises, to get enough cash to pay the guy (and, _okay_ , their finances being totally joint now is way, way easier than the myriad of complicated systems they’ve had set up over the years). He’s liberated a couple of plates from the dishwasher and set up shop in the front room before Cas wanders in after him, phone still wedged under his ear. 

“ - our food is here,” Cas tells her, cold and a little curt, “Yes. I will tell you more about my promotion soon. Yes. Yes, I will call Michael. No, okay, _goodbye_ , Mother.”

“How’s she doing?” Dean asks, through a mouthful of pad thai, swinging his feet off the sofa to make room for him to sit down heavily and exhale.

“For a woman who has consistently made no effort to have a place in my life, she is remarkably demanding when she deigns to try and show up. She didn’t ask about you. Apparently, she is back to pretending you don’t exist. That’s my pad thai.”

“What’s mine is yours, sweetheart.”

“Not until we actually get married,” Cas says, “Fine. I’ll have the duck.”

“Wait, that’s duck?” Dean asks, “Stop the presses. Pad thai’s all yours, baby.”

“I am not your car,” Cas says, on automatic, handing him the foil tray of _duck_ red thai curry without a smile. It takes him some time to defrost after talking to his family, usually. Dean’s used to it. “How was your day?”

“Good,” Dean says, “I, uh, applied for the voluntary redundancy crap.”

Cas stills midway through spooning pad thai onto his plate.

“This is definitely _pre childhood memorabilia_ conversation, Dean,” Cas says, fixing him with that near-paralysing blue stare, “You didn’t discuss this with me.”

“This ain't some quid-pro quo revenge decision.”

“I didn’t suggest it _was_.”

“You were thinking it,” Dean says, “We all had a one to one with management to talk about the whole damn thing today, and I just - none of that stuff you said was _wrong_ \- and I, well, went over all the money stuff on Monday night after we talked, and we’re in better shakes than I thought, and now you _have_ taken the promotion… I don’t know, man, I want to make you happy, and that’s what you wanted -”

“ - it’s what I thought was sensible, not what I _wanted_ -”

“ - and I realised that the other option is battling it out, hunger games style, against the guys I’ve been working with for three freaking years, wishing they got screwed instead of us, and it I didn’t want a damn thing to do with it, so I decided in the middle of the meeting to fuck it. I tried to call you.”

“I was in a meeting.”

“Hey, it’s cool, I just figured it wasn’t a text conversation,” Dean says, “They’ll process it in a couple of weeks. Can finish fixing up the house while I’m looking for something else.” 

“Redecorate the kitchen.”

“Yep,” Dean says, “That okay?”

“Yes,” Cas says, “I hope I didn’t - it was _your_ decision to make, Dean, I just wanted to give you my opinion. I - I trust your judgement infinitely more than my own, it just seemed that you weren’t going to address it.”

“I get it. I’ve been checked out of a lot of crap, but this, I was thinking it through. I was processing and all that junk, but I get why you’d think I wasn’t. You’re all good, Cas, I promise. We don’t have a problem here. Feel pretty damn _good_ about this decision actually, considering.”

“Have you thought about the other things I mentioned?” Cas asks, breaking his razor sharp gaze to concentrate on helping himself to some of the red thai curry, instead, which is telling. Cas still feels insecure. He still feels like he _messed up_ by pushing Dean rather than letting them get there organically. Like something in their conversation on Sunday has left him feeling discomforted, even If Dean’s not convinced he could accurately work out what. The chances of getting Cas to explain it right now are pretty limited, too. This feels a lot like a _wait it out_ scenario, which is fine. Dean can do that. He can wait it out. It’s just… not the best timing. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, heavily, eyes trained on Cas’ profile. “Need some more on time on that, but I swear I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Okay,”

“And,” Dean begins, swallowing. “I, I think I wanna go to Sioux Falls this weekend,”

“Okay,” Cas says, frowning, turning to meet his eye again. “I can clear my Friday afternoon schedule.”

“I mean, alone,” Dean says, wetting his lip unconsciously as Cas’ expression stills, because he _knew_ Cas would hear it like that. _Knew_ that it had the potential to sound like a grenade. That he needed to bring it up with enough day’s notice that he can lavish Cas with reasons to believe that it’s _not like_ when he left before. Cas hasn’t driven him away. He’s not abandoning ship. It’s not _like_ that, he just… he needs to see Bobby. Talk to him in person. Drive. Have a chance for things to slot back into place in his head.

His hand lands on Cas’ knee.

“It's not like before. I'm not - I'm not walking out on you, I swear, I just need to drive.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, voice a little raw, “Not because of _you_ , I just need to think.”

“You need to _think_.” 

“Not - not like _that_ ,” Dean says, “Cas.” 

“About what?”

“What I want,” Dean says, and mutters a curse when Cas blanches, “What I want _with you_ you asshole. You were right. I haven’t been planning. I haven’t been _there_ for you like I wanna be, because I’ve been - grieving, I guess - and I just, dammit. Cas. I’m _in love with you_. Our relationship isn’t some fragile, immature thing like it was when we were right out of college, okay? It’s a weekend. It’s shitty timing, but I feel like it’s - something I need to do, for _us_. If it’s gonna freak you out too much, I don’t have to go. I won’t force it on you, but…”

“No, Dean, you should go, if you want to.” 

“It’s not _want to_ like I want space from you want to,” Dean says, “I just…”

“Need to think.”

“Right,” Dean says, “This is _awesome_ pad thai.”

“Stop eating my food,” Cas says, half slumped against his shoulder, as he spears a piece of duck from Dean’s plate with a pointed half smile. “Work was very tiresome today.”

“I figured,” Dean says, taking in the way Cas’ face is drawn into lines of exhaustion, the way his eyes have changed since he was eighteen years’ old, the exact slope of his shoulders when he’s tired and cranky and has just had to speak to his mother. God, he loves him. “After we eat, I can make your day better.” 

“Are you referring to watching more Drag Race with me?”

“No, I’m referring to the kind of oral sex that’s gonna make you forget every damn worry in the back of your head twice over.” 

“Twice?”

“Maybe three times,” Dean says, squeezing his knee briefly before reclaiming his cutlery. “Who the fuck knows? Now, tell me more about this participation certificate you got for gym class in fourth grade.”

“I didn't get a participation certificate in fourth grade “

“Really? It says you _tried hard_ in your school report. Figured the two went hand in hand.”

“I cannot believe she sent my _school_ reports here,” Cas says, but he's smiling a little, “Or that you have read them, in depth.”

“Please, I’m gonna be calling everyone I know to read them your second grade maths score,” Dean grins, “Your childhood crap is _awesome_. You dare throw any of it away this weekend - ”

“ - I wouldn’t,” Cas says, picking up the remote control, starting up netflix and putting Drag Race on. Dean settles back into the sofa and takes another large mouthful of food. It’s fucking _delicious_ and they’re definitely putting this on the official take out list. “Samandriel recommended the Thai place. It was out of delivery range in our apartment.”

“Well, _tick_ one for the house.” Dean says, “Goddamn _awesome_.”

“Hmm,” Cas says, attention already captured by freaking _Drag Race_. Dean shakes his head and digs out his cell phone to continue making arrangements with Bobby. He’d half alluded to him wanting to come by in a phone call last night before Cas got home from work, but he hadn’t gotten into the details of coming alone. 

“I'm going to shower,” Cas says, after he’s finished eating.

“I'll clean up,” Dean says, standing up and straightening his back out, “I'm serious about the whole sex thing. Meet you in bed.” 

“It’s early.”

“And I’ve got plans for you, tough guy.” Dean says, piling up their dishes to try and do some damage control with their kitchen. Two people shouldn’t be able to generate so much freaking _mess_ , but Cas cooked last night and he’s total disaster when it comes to not getting crap everywhere and neither of them could be bothered to play clean up. 

He puts in enough time of tidying for Cas to reasonably out of the shower, before heading up to the bathroom himself to finally sort out his facial hair. Cas doesn’t like his almost half-beard anyway, and he never intended for it to happen. He just couldn't find his damn razor, but it's been gone long enough that he's going to have to call it a loss. 

Cas’ face breaks out into a wide, unapologetic smile when he comes into room, freshly clean shaven. It’s the kind of smile that crinkles his eyes and makes Dean feel like fucking batman for having won one, and it might be one of his favourites of Cas’ expressions.

“You found your razor?” Cas asks, as Dean settles on his side of the bed, twisting so that his everything is angled towards Cas.

“Nope,” Dean says, “Went out and bought one at lunch.”

“Is this _pre-planned_ oral sex?”

“Maybe. Was thinking about you today.”

“You were thinking about going down on me at lunchtime on a Tuesday?” He looks incredibly satisfied with the fact, as he runs his thumb against the smooth of Dean’s cheek and smiles.

“Yeah, well, I liked that shirt on you.”

“You're absurd and I love you,” Cas says, hands already shucked beneath Dean’s shirt, pulling him closer as they kiss, kiss, kiss. 

*

With the promotion comes an actual office that the receptionist points out to him after he's charmed his way into being buzzed up. His name is written across the damn door too, and it looks pretty good, and he sounds _good_ and authoritative as he calls for him to ‘come in' after Dean's wrapped his knuckles against the door.

“ Dean,” Cas says, the professional shtick crumbling away into a smile, “Hello, Dean.”

“Bought you lunch.” Dean says, gesturing to the paper bag of goods and the coffees in his spare hand.

“You know, when I said I'd be fine, I meant it.” 

“Couldn't leave without saying goodbye.” Dean says, taking the other seat and handing out their food, glancing round Cas’ office. 

“You did that this morning.” Cas says, which is true. He forced himself out of bed a good twenty minutes earlier than normal so that they could have breakfast together and engage in a long, drawn out, coffee-flavoured kiss. Still. 

“I can take the lunch away.” 

“No,” Cas says, “It smells delicious, and your company is tolerable too.”

“I'm heading off after this,” Dean says, eyeing up the desk for a place to put his feet up. Cas can read it all over his face, clearly, because he arches an eyebrow in a way that means it’s probably a terrible idea. “Guess my boss up for redundancy too, cause she's so beyond giving a crap. Told me I could leave whenever I wanted.” 

“Hmm.”

“Plus, I've got monday off, so, uh, might head back on Monday morning if that's -”

“ - that's fine,” Cas says, taking his coffee, “Dean, it's _fine_.”

“Well, it's - it's the first time we've done the apart thing since we _really_ did the apart thing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, man,” Dean says, “I did the math last night. We've done one night, no weekends. It's - weird. Anyway, had to make sure you ate.”

“I eat,” Cas says, taking another mouthful of sandwich. 

“And you're a freaking sap,” Dean says, nodding towards the picture of their graduation he's got on his desk. “Need to get you a desk plant.”

“I'll kill it,” Cas says, which is dead on.

“A cactus, maybe. Or something plastic.”

“You're intolerable and I will miss you this weekend.”

“Yeah, me too,” Dean says, draining his coffee, “Kick ass office though, hot shot.” Cas sends him a look. “We could get another of those door plaques made for our bedroom. Castiel Novak.”

“I'll request one from Zachariah.”

“How is Zach? He around today?”

“Yes, he will no doubt make his presence known before you leave.” Cas says, relaxing into the back of his seat, hands curled around his coffee. 

They finish lunch too quickly and then Dean’s reasons for hanging around in Lawrence are suddenly gone.

“Guess I should - head off.”

Cas looks at him. A _not_ smile, not frown look.

“You should take a coffee for the road,” Cas says, after a few long moments of them looking at each other. He pulls a thermos mug out of one of his drawers (and who the fuck knows _why_ Cas has one of those) then starts heading towards the staff room, with a glance back at Dean to ensure he’s following. 

Dean’s been in the staff room maybe half a dozen times, at this point, and it’s approximately the same as every single staff room he’s ever been in. Coffee pot, fridge, tupperware labelled in fat black marker and normally a little too full. Right now, it’s just Samandriel, a guy Dean might recognise from last years’ christmas party and them.

Samandriel offers him a broad smile from his position in the sink as Cas faffs around with the coffee machine. 

“Hey there, Alfie.” 

“Dean, haven't seen you here for a while.” Samandriel says. 

“Headed off for the weekend,” Dean says, “You make sure Cas doesn't work all weekend for me, won't you? Keep him out of trouble.”

“I don't need baby sitting, Dean.”

“Take him out for a walk or something,” Dean says with a grin, “Make sure he gets fed.”

“Dean,” Cas says, affectionately frustrated.

“Hey, sorry about missing your birthday the other week, it -”

“ - Dean, as I live and breathe,” Zachariah interrupts, radiating smarm and, goddamnit. _Exactly_ what he goddamn needs. 

“ - Zach,” Dean says, through a grimace.

“ - Coffee,” Cas says, pressing the mug into his hands, all affable edges tightened into hard lines. Zach is a straight up, total douchebag and he’s at least ninety percent of the reason he thinks Cas shouldn’t be letting himself get more and more into the guy’s pocket. Seeing Cas _tense_ and bristle when Dean knows him well enough to _know_ how much it actually costs him to remain stoic. He fucking hates it, but if Cas thinks this it’s what’s best from him…. If _Cas_ is doing this for their hypothetical future kids college funds, then maybe, maybe he can live with that. “I'll walk you to the car.”

“I hope your boyfriend here -”

“ - Fiancee,” Cas corrects.

“ - isn't distracting you from your report, Castiel.”

“The report will be done, Zachariah,” Cas says, “Dean.”

“What a dick,” Dean mutters, once they’ve spilled out of the building.

“Please, I'd rather not think of his genitalia.”

“You’d rather think of him junkless?” 

“Yes,” Cas says, defiantly.

“He’s giving off extra douche vibes today.”

“Turning down the promotion and then changing my mind has not lead to an improvement in his attitude,” Cas says, “It’s not of import. Drive safe, Dean.”

“Roger that,” Dean says. He closes the palm around the impala keys and smiles. Leans back against the body of his car. “Call you when I get to Sioux Falls.” 

“Yes,” Cas says, setting the flask of coffee on the roof of the impala to lean forwards and kiss him. His hands are hot from the heat of the coffee bleeding through the mug and it’s fucking perfect enough that he almost calls the whole weekend off.

He needs to go, through, for _Cas_. To think. To process the last sixteen arguments they’ve had. To wade through everything Sam said about their relationship, viewing it from the outside. To look back over all of it. 

Sam saying _you set the pace of your relationship_ with such conviction. 

Cas, in the kitchen. _You said we should move to a one bedroom apartment. You said we should move in together…. I’m no good at this, Dean._

And before, Cas, grim faced and unreadable, thumb gentle as he washes Dean’s bloodied knuckles, half an hour after he’s smashed up the impala, four weeks after his father’s death. 

He needs to drive.

Cas pressing the coffee into his hands with another kiss and then he leaves.

He selects John Winchester’s favourite tape out of his arsenal and turns it up until it hurts his ears.

*

Driving helps. It usually does. 

*

Bobby’s salvage yard looks the same as ever and that alone is enough for a little clarity to slip back into place. He’s been back here a couple of times since the funeral, but they’ve all blurred into one mass visit. A lot of this year just _happened_ and it - he didn’t know. He didn’t know how much Cas was picking up his slack and taking over the day to day running of his life so that he could just _implode_ and grieve. 

Maybe that’s okay, but it needs to stop. 

He needs to be back _in_ his relationship. 

“There a reason for this little solo road trip, y’idjit?” Bobby asks, after Dean’s let himself into Bobby’s kitchen and dumping his duffle bag in the front room. 

“Can’t I just miss my old man?”, Dean says, “There whiskey in this joint?”

“Two minutes you've been here, already making demands.”

“What can I say, Bobby?”

“Mmhm. What's new?” Bobby asks, leaning against the side of the kitchen counter without moving to get the two glasses. 

“I dunno. We bought a house. I'm being made redundant, kinda voluntarily. Cas got promoted. You're dating Ellen. It's all wild and adult. Turns out Cas has been sorting our finances for the past year. Did I tell you Cas is my next of kin now?”

“Uh uh. Is that all?”

“Does Ellen live with you?” Dean asks, because it occurred to him that he never _asked_ that. He didn’t ask. He didn’t even think about it. Not even on the drive over here, not once did he think that Bobby could have his own crap going on. 

How out of it has he been?

“Here's your scotch,” Bobby says with an eye roll, “And yes, you dumbass.”

“Huh.” Dean says.

“She's at the Roadhouse.”

“Hey, here's a picture of Cas in the school nativity.” Dean says, pulling the photo out of his wallet and straightening out the edges. He has a goddamn halo, and it's possibly the cutest damn thing he's ever seen.

Bobby snorts at him. 

“Why are you here, boy?”

“Your charm and hospitality.”

“ _Alone_?” Bobby asks, “Without your damn Angel.” Bobby says, nodding at the dumb photo still in his hands.

“How messed up was I after… after Dad?” Dean says, concentrating his gaze on swirling his whiskey around his glass, jaw clenching. Bobby raises a stark eyebrow at him. “I just - I dunno, Bobby, it feels like I let a lot of stuff slide this past year, and now Cas is freaking out on me, I guess. About money and the house and - us.” 

“So you took a drive?”

“Not like _that_ ,” Dean says, “It’s fine, Bobby, we talked. We’re okay. Just wanna get my head back on straight.” 

“And you’re coming here to do that?”

“Bobby,” Dean says, voice cracking a little, “I just wanna go to Dad’s grave and tell him that I - that I’m done. That I wanted to make him proud of me beyond anything for so goddamn long - that he was a crappy Dad, a lot of the time, but that I hate that… that it turned out like it did. That we didn’t have enough time to fix things. That we hadn’t talked and I didn’t have a goddamn idea where he was, and that _sucks_ and - he was my father - but that I can’t do _this_ anymore. That I don’t give a damn if he’d hate me marrying Cas, because Cas needs me. That I can’t keep tying myself in knots trying to work out what I should have done better. That’s not just on me. That’s on him too. That he - he screwed me up plenty, but he was my Dad, and I’d have died for him. That I - we loved him, and that I know in his dumbass, warped way he loved us too.”

“Dean,” Bobby says, voice gruff, chest tight, “I ain’t claiming to know what went on in your Daddy’s head, but I know that I’m proud of you and I like to think that counts for something.”

“It does,” Dean says, tight, “Thanks.”

Bobby refills both of their glasses with another measure of whiskey and they drink in silent companionship until Ellen’s car pulls into the driveway.

*

He’s halfway through eating a slice of Ellen’s pie for second breakfast when he gets a call from a first responder paramedic in Kansas who cloaks the words _car accident_ and _Castiel_ and _Lawrence General Hospital_ in such a smooth, calm voice that they barely make sense. 

He’s still. The motion to bring his mug of coffee to his lips aborted halfway through. His blood is running cold.

_Car accident. Castiel. Cas_. 

Cas. 

He must’ve, must’ve said something out loud - he thinks he asked which hospital - but Bobby has stopped washing the dishes, and his gaze is steady and concerned. They heard the edge to his voice. Can tell that his chest is frozen and constricting and gripped tight by sheer panic. They know something is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Dean,” Ellen says, her voice the same deliberate calm.

“He’s - minor injuries. Car accident. Cas.”

“I’ll drive you to the airport,” Bobby says, curt, already crossing the room to pocket his car keys, in motion. Ellen is standing up too, heading upstairs. She’s back with his bag before Dean’s managed to stand up and find his jacket.

_Castiel_. 

They’re on the road in five minutes.

He’s on a flight within two hours and he white-knuckles it through the whole thing, completely sober for the first time while flying since he was a kid, with the raw shock of those words still running round his head. Cas. Car accident. Cas, hurt, Lawrence General. _Castiel_. 

The last time he took a call like that he lost his father. That’s the only damn thing he can think about as he clenches his hands into his fists from the second the seatbelt light flicks on, because what if - it can’t - _he can’t -_ but what if it’s not minor, what if it isn’t, if he isn’t - 

_Castiel._

He can’t do any of this - handle any of this - without Cas. He can’t hack the goddamn mortgage, or Benny, or the aftermath of his grief, losing his job, Sam, thinking about kids. Not without Cas. Not without Cas’ inability to button up one of his stupid shirts, or his anal retention about the dishes, or his dumbass trench coat lying around. He can’t do it. None of it, not a goddamn thing, makes sense without Castiel. 

Dean slams his eyes shut to try and hold off the threat of something a lot like tears as the plane jolts into land, the shockwaves of it running through his spine as he tries to think straight. 

Cas is going to be okay, because he has to be, because Dean needs him so goddamn much he doesn’t have the words to express it. 

**Author's Note:**

> And you thought I was done!! I have had this fic sitting in my half-written folder for such a long time so... this will be the last extra bit. Definitely. 
> 
> Side note: speaking of amalgamating, one day I am going to put all these little intro-sequels bits into chronological order and read it that way to see how successful my master time line document has been.


End file.
